Let Them All Go(2019)

The Panafrican Festival in Algiers(ar)

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.

143 Sahara Street(fr)

Alone in a small white house on the edge of national road 1, the Trans-Saharan road, which connects Algiers to Tamanrasset crossing the immensity of the desert, Malika, 74, one day opened her door to the director Hassen Ferhani, who came there to scout with his friend Chawki Amari, journalist at El Watan and author of the story Nationale 1 which relates his journey on this north-south axis of more than 2000 km. The Malika of Amari's novel, which Ferhani admits to having first perceived as a "literary fantasy", suddenly takes on an unsuspected human depth in this environment naturally hostile to man. She lends herself to the film project as she welcomes her clients, with an economy of gestures and words, an impression reinforced by the mystery that surrounds her and the rare elements of her biography which suggest that she is not from the region, that she left the fertile north of Algeria to settle in the desert where she lives with a dog and a cat.

Many Beautiful Things(en)

In an age when women were incapable of joining the artistic dialogue, Lilias Trotter managed to win the favour of celebrated critics.

Frantz Fanon: His Life, His Struggle, His Work(fr)

It is the evocation of a life as brief as it is dense. An encounter with a dazzling thought, that of Frantz Fanon, a psychiatrist of West Indian origin, who will reflect on the alienation of black people. It is the evocation of a man of reflection who refuses to close his eyes, of the man of action who devoted himself body and soul to the liberation struggle of the Algerian people and who will become, through his political commitment, his fight, and his writings, one of the figures of the anti-colonialist struggle. Before being killed at the age of 36 by leukemia, on December 6, 1961. His body was buried by Chadli Bendjedid, who later became Algerian president, in Algeria, at the Chouhadas cemetery (cemetery of war martyrs ). With him, three of his works are buried: “Black Skin, White Masks”, “L’An V De La Révolution Algérien” and “The Wretched of the Earth”.

Scream(en)

An experimental essay film about terrorism, media, violence and globalisation. Three infotainment news broadcasts - a rollercoaster, a hijacking, and an influencer - are soundtracked by pulsating experimental electronics that push the psychic residue of a post war-on-terror world out of the unconscious and onto the screen. Capitalism, imperialism, desire; all three are implicated in a nihilism that has seeped from the news into the social psyche.

The Zerda and the Songs of Forgetting(fr)

“La Zerda and the songs of oblivion” (1982) is one of only two films made by the Algerian novelist Assia Djebar, with “La Nouba des femmes du mont Chenoua” (1977). Powerful poetic essay based on archives, in which Assia Djebar – in collaboration with the poet Malek Alloula and the composer Ahmed Essyad – deconstructs the French colonial propaganda of the Pathé-Gaumont newsreels from 1912 to 1942, to reveal the signs of revolt among the subjugated North African population. Through the reassembly of these propaganda images, Djebar recovers the history of the Zerda ceremonies, suggesting that the power and mysticism of this tradition were obliterated and erased by the predatory voyeurism of the colonial gaze. This very gaze is thus subverted and a hidden tradition of resistance and struggle is revealed, against any exoticizing and orientalist temptation.

My Story Is Not Yet Written(fr)

Jacqueline Gozlan - who left Algeria with her parents in 1961 - nostalgically retraces the history of the Algiers Cinematheque, inseparable from that of the country's Independence, through film extracts and numerous testimonies; notably that of one of its creators, Jean-Michel Arnold, but also of filmmakers such as Merzak Allouache and critics such as Jean Douchet. A place of life for Algerians, the Cinémathèque was the hub of African cinemas. Created in 1965 by Ahmed Hocine, Mahieddine Moussaoui and Jean-Michel Arnold, the Cinémathèque benefited from the excitement of Independence. The Cinematheque becomes a meeting place for Algiers society, future filmmakers find their best school there. In 1969, the Algiers Pan-African Festival brought together all African filmmakers, and from 1970, Boudjemâa Kareche developed a collection of Arab and African films.

To Be Twenty in the Aures(fr)

A group of refractory and pacifist Bretons is sent to Algeria. These beings confronted with the horrors of war gradually become killing machines. One of them did not accept it and deserted, taking with him an FLN prisoner who was to be executed the next day. International Critics Prize at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival. Copy restored in 2012

Pour Que Ses Jours Fleurissent(fr)

Six o'clock in the morning, the sun rises behind the Djurdjura mountain. With precise gestures, learned since childhood, Ouardia raises the water, crouches down to splash his face with cool water. Soon her baby will be born. Hadjila, the traditional midwife, prepares herself internally to help the mother complete the transition from separation. This film talks about the knowledge surrounding birth that Kabyle women have passed down for centuries; knowledge that European women seek to rediscover in order to reclaim this founding passage of our lives.

Aleph(es)

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.

Bouzareah(fr)

Arriving aboard the liner “Ville d’Alger”, young French citizens go to Bouzareah to follow a one-year professional training course at the École Normale. After acquiring the basics of the Arabic language and culture, the future teachers are trained to teach the population the basics of modern agriculture, manual work and hygiene. A study trip concludes the training. The teachers are then sent to the regions of their choice, where they will put their knowledge at the service of the inhabitants.

CHoosing at Twenty(fr)

Between 1954-1962, one hundred to three hundred young French people refused to participate in the Algerian war. These rebels, soldiers or conscripts were non-violent or anti-colonialists. Some took refuge in Switzerland where Swiss citizens came to their aid, while in France they were condemned as traitors to the country. In 1962, a few months after Independence, Villi Hermann went to a region devastated by war near the Algerian-Moroccan border, to help rebuild a school. In 2016 he returned to Algeria and reunited with his former students. He also met French refractories, now living in France or Switzerland.

Children of the Wind(ar)

Three short films about abandoned children, left to the omnipotence of silence, of the eye and of the hand but also of abysmal loneliness

An Unhealed Wound - The Harkis in the Algerian War(fr)

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".

The Lives of Albert Camus(fr)

Albert Camus died at 46 years old on January 4, 1960, two years after his Nobel Prize in literature. Author of “L'Etranger”, one of the most widely read novels in the world, philosopher of the absurd and of revolt, resistant, journalist, playwright, Albert Camus had an extraordinary destiny. Child of the poor districts of Algiers, tuberculosis patient, orphan of father, son of an illiterate and deaf mother, he tore himself away from his condition thanks to his teacher. French from Algeria, he never ceased to fight for equality with the Arabs and the Kabyle, while fearing the Independence of the FLN. Founded on restored and colorized archives, and first-hand accounts, this documentary attempts to paint the portrait of Camus as he was.

Mariner of the Mountains(fr)

Using his personal background, Brazilian Karim Aïnous invites the audience to follow/discover an incredible journey through space and time, with an original and usually unknown prism/aspect : The strong bound between Algeria and Brazil, two countries with political and revolutionary strikes that mould their evolution.

Perdus entre deux rives, les Chibanis oubliés(fr)

El Ouafi Boughera, The marathon runner of history(cn)

On August 5, 1928, after 2 hours and 32 minutes of racing, the 71st rooster wearing the bib entered the Olympic stadium in Amsterdam. Ahmed El Ouafi Bouguéra wins the gold medal and becomes the first Olympic champion from the African continent. He achieved his feat under the tricolor flag. The start of his real marathon is underway. The history of sport extends to the history of Algeria and France. This documentary retraces the different stages of the life of this great champion, not only the history of sport but also the great story. Archival photographs and interviews mingle with the painted paintings. The series thus once again gives voice to this forgotten hero, one of the great heroes of immigration who defended France for more than a century.

À Propos De... L'autre Détail(fr)

Documentary edited from testimonies on the torture of people who experienced the war. Some witnesses were tortured by Jean-Marie Le Pen. These testimonies will help defend the newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné in court against Jean-Marie Le Pen for defamation. The film was shown in 1985 during the trial and some witnesses also came to support the newspaper. But the 1963 amnesty law protects the politician, prohibiting the use of images that could harm people who served during the Algerian war.

Five Directors On The Battle of Algiers(en)

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 .