Algeria, Year Zero

Aleph

April 2021 •Spanish

Structured as a labyrinth-like game and inspired by Jorge Luis Borges, Aleph is a travelogue of experience, a dreamer's journey through the lives, experiences, stories and musings of protagonists spanning ten countries and five continents.

The Panafrican Festival in Algiers

January 1969 •Arabic

Festival panafricain d'Alger is a documentary by William Klein of the music and dance festival held 40 years ago in the streets and in venues all across Algiers. Klein follows the preparations, the rehearsals, the concerts… He blends images of interviews made to writers and advocates of the freedom movements with stock images, thus allowing him to touch on such matters as colonialism, neocolonialism, colonial exploitation, the struggles and battles of the revolutionary movements for Independence.

François Mitterrand et la guerre d'Algérie

November 2010 •French

L'Orientalisme

August 2019 •French

Orientalism is a literary and artistic movement born in Western Europe in the 18th century. Through its scale and popularity, throughout the 19th century, it marked the interest and curiosity of artists and writers for the countries of the West (the Maghreb) or the Levant (the Middle East). Orientalism was born from the fascination of the Ottoman Empire and followed its slow disintegration and the progression of European colonizations. This exotic trend is associated with all the artistic movements of the 19th century, academic, romantic, realistic or even impressionist. It is present in architecture, music, painting, literature, poetry... Picturesque aesthetics, confusing styles, civilizations and eras, orientalism has created numerous clichés and clichés that we still find today in literature or cinema.

Dawn of the Damned

July 1965 •French

This excellent feature-length documentary - the story of the imperialist colonization of Africa - is a film about death. Its most shocking sequences derive from the captured French film archives in Algeria containing - unbelievably - masses of French-shot documentary footage of their tortures, massacres and executions of Algerians. The real death of children, passers-by, resistance fighters, one after the other, becomes unbearable. Rather than be blatant propaganda, the film convinces entirely by its visual evidence, constituting an object lesson for revolutionary cinema.

Moudjahidate

November 2008 •French

The First 54 Years: An Abbreviated Manual for Military Occupation

April 2021 •Hebrew

An exhaustive explanation of how the military occupation of an invaded territory occurs and its consequences, using as a paradigmatic example the recent history of Israel and the Palestinian territories, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, from 1967, when the Six-Day War took place, to the present day; an account by filmmaker Avi Mograbi enriched by the testimonies of Israeli army veterans.

Mouloud Feraoun

January 2009 •Arabic

Docufiction about Mouloud Feraoun, an author who upholds the great values ​​of the Universal Man. It is in the name of man that Feraoun stands up against injustice. It is in the name of man that he is tormented by war. Feraoun is a solitary creator who suffers to the point of wishing for liberating madness. It is through his work that the portrait of a humble and discreet author, a talented writer and convictions emerges. Most of the time, I let him talk about himself in simple and fair words. I compile his moments of hope, worry, dreams and fears. During all my research, a generous and good Mouloud Feraoun stood out to me who did not hesitate to expose an inhuman and shameful colonial system. His clear and straightforward voice echoes the cry of a people from whom he has never separated.

Be Water

January 2020 •English

In 1971, after being rejected by Hollywood, Bruce Lee returned to his parents’ homeland of Hong Kong to complete four iconic films. Charting his struggles between two worlds, this portrait explores questions of identity and representation through the use of rare archival footage, interviews with loved ones and Bruce’s own writings.

True Chronicles of the Blida Joinville Psychiatric Hospital in the Last Century, when Dr Frantz Fanon Was Head of the Fifth Ward between 1953 and 1956

July 2025 •Arabic

1953, colonized Algeria. Fanon, a young black psychiatrist is appointed head doctor at the Blida-Joinville Hospital. He was putting his theories of ‘Institutional Psychotherapy’ into practice in opposition to the racist theories of the Algies School of Psychiatry, while a war broke out in his own wards.

An Unhealed Wound - The Harkis in the Algerian War

September 2010 •French

It's the unforgivable story of the two hundred thousands harkis, the Arabs who fought alongside the French in the bitter Algerian war, from 1954 to 1962. Why did they make that choice? Why were they slaughtered after Algeria's independence? Why were they abandonned by the French government? Some fifty to sixty thousands were saved and transferred in France, often at pitiful conditions. This is for the first time, the story of this tragedy, told in the brilliant style of the authors of "Apocalypse".

Lost Mountain

January 2020 •French

On November 1, 1954, the National Liberation Front of Algeria announced the war for the country's independence. France, colonizer since 1830, hastened to reinforce its military contingent in the four corners of the country and to prevent the advance of the rebels. A little Chaoui, born in a mountainous region of the country, sees his placid childhood collapse in the middle of a crossfire that he does not understand. The story, inspired by real testimonies, is constructed with images from the archives of the French army. From this apparently dissociated dialogue between image and word arises a sensitive homage to the memory that rests in the archives and to the ignored voice of its protagonists.

Jean Sénac, The Blacksmith of the Sun

January 2003 •French

By ending the life of Jean Senac on August 30, 1973 in Algiers, his assassins believed they would silence him forever. They were wrong since his voice is a little louder every day. Witnesses to these craze: the publication of the complete works of this great poet, the countless conferences and radio broadcasts devoted to him and finally the production of films such as "Jean Sénac, the blacksmith of the sun". The moving and overwhelming testimonies of those who knew him, the unpublished film archives, the generous voice of the poet on the radio, the discovery of his travels in the territories of poetry and politics make this film a precious document on the life of Jean Senac.

Afric Hotel

January 2011 •French

In the furnace of Algiers, the camera follows and accompanies Ibrahim, Adam, and Ismael, originally from sub-Saharan Africa, in an irregular situation who live in this hotel with the predestined name. They live from odd jobs. One is an elevator operator in a building, the second is a shoemaker and the third works in the construction sector. The other side of immigration from sub-Saharan Africa. Behind the statistics hide people, bodies waiting to be able to start another life elsewhere. A hotel thus becomes a transit point in which stories and hopes mingle, a place which seems suspended in time and space. A static journey waiting for another to begin.

L'Histoire Du Film "La Bataille D'Alger"

January 2018 •French

More than fifty years after the release of the film “The Battle of Algiers” in theaters in June 1966, director Salim Aggar found, after a search which lasted more than a year and a half, the actors, extras and technicians who worked on the film directed by Gillo Pentecorvo and produced by Yacef Saadi. In this documentary full of anecdotes and stories about the filming of the film, the director found the actress who played the role of Hassiba Ben Bouali, the young 17-year-old actress who played Bouhamidi's bride but especially certain figures important parts of the film who were barely 10 years old at the time of filming and who no one will recognize today. Beyond the important historical aspect of the film, the documentary focused mainly on the social, cinematographic and cultural aspect of the film and its impact on a generation which had just regained independence.

Hearts and Minds

December 1974 •English

Many times during his presidency, Lyndon B. Johnson said that ultimate victory in the Vietnam War depended upon the U.S. military winning the "hearts and minds" of the Vietnamese people. Filmmaker Peter Davis uses Johnson's phrase in an ironic context in this anti-war documentary, filmed and released while the Vietnam War was still under way, juxtaposing interviews with military figures like U.S. Army Chief of Staff William C. Westmoreland with shocking scenes of violence and brutality.

Five Directors On The Battle of Algiers

August 2004 •English

This 17-minute documentary is featured on the 3-Disc Criterion Collection DVD of The Battle of Algiers (1966), released in 2004. An in-depth look at the Battle of Algiers through the eyes of five established and accomplished filmmakers; Spike Lee, Steven Soderbergh, Oliver Stone, Julian Schnabel and Mira Nair. They discuss how the shots, cinematography, set design, sound and editing directly influenced their own work and how the film's sequences look incredibly realistic, despite the claim that everything in the film was staged .

Pierre Clément, Cinéma et Révolution

October 2023 •Arabic

Pierre Clément, student and photographer of René Vauthier, first accompanied him to Tunisia to make a film on the country's independence in 1957. Destiny led him to Algeria and his presence in February 1958 at the Tunisian-Algerian border changed his life. . Forever. He took his camera and photographed the attacks on Sakia Sidi Youssef before committing himself body and soul to the Algerian cause. Shortly after, he directed the film “Algerian Refugees” before being arrested, tortured and imprisoned, while his third film, “The National Liberation Army in Almaki”, was not finished. Abdel Nour Zahzah, a director who commemorates Pierre Clément, the director who risked his life, the brother of the Algerian resistance, who disappeared in 2007.

De Gaulle, the Last King of France

March 2017 •French

Charles de Gaulle, the first president (1958-1969) of the Vth Republic, France’s current system of government, left his mark on the country . He was statesman of action and has been compared to a monarch. This film depicts the general’s personality through the great events of his presidential term, at a time when the world was undergoing considerable changes.

Fata Morgana

February 1972 •German

Shot under extreme conditions and inspired by Mayan creation theory, the film contemplates the illusion of reality and the possibility of capturing for the camera something which is not there. It is about the mirages of nature—and the nature of mirage.