Algérie 1962: Chronique d'un conflit (1962)

Ôrí

A look at the Brazilian black movement between 1977 and 1988, going by the relationship between Brazil and Africa.

Papa Césaire

Shortly after his death in 2008, Maldoror made this film about her longtime friend and collaborator, the Négritude poet Aimé Césaire. In this film, she retraces the steps of Césaire’s travels across the globe — particularly back to his hometown in Martinique, where Maldoror interviews his relatives about his life — and her working relationship with Césaire, including fragments of her previous films about him, Un homme, une terre (1976) and Le masque des mots (1987).

Manifesto of the 121

On September 5, 1960, the trial of about twenty French activists from the "Jeanson Network" began, supporters in the metropolis of the action of the Algerian FLN independence activists. But after a few days, the situation was reversed and the trial transformed into a political arena, it was the government, the army, their policy, it was the entire Algerian war whose trial began. Accused, witnesses, lawyers, overflowing a stunned court, transformed the courtroom into a tribune of the opposition. The trial coincided with the publication of the "Manifesto of the 121" on the right to insubordination, signed among others by Jean Paul Sartre, Arthur Adamov, Simone de Beauvoir, André Breton, Marguerite Duras, Pierre Boulez, René Dumont, François Chatelet…

China Is Still Far

On November 1, 1954, near Ghassira, a small village lost in the Aurès, a couple of French teachers and an Algerian boss were the first civilian victims of a seven-year war which would lead to the independence of Algeria. More than fifty years later, Malek Bensmaïl returns to this Chaoui village, which has become “the cradle of the Algerian revolution”, to film, throughout the seasons, its inhabitants, its school and its children.

The Silence of the River

“Forgetting is complicit in recidivism,” says the commentary of this film dedicated to the demonstration of October 17, 1961 in Paris and the savage repression that followed. 11,538 Algerians will be arrested, which is reminiscent of the great Vel d’hiv roundup of July 16 and 17, 1942 where 12,884 Jews were arrested.
 The film brings together eyewitnesses including a priest, a peacekeeper, a couple of workers sympathetic to the Algerian cause, a lawyer, Paris municipal councilors including Claude Bourdet (then one of the leaders of the PSU and journalist to France Observateur), Gérard Monatte, the future police union leader, and the editor and writer François Maspero.

I Am More Dangerous Dead

A poetic tribute to writer, poet and environmental activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was executed alongside eight other activists for opposing the environmental damage done in their oil-rich homeland, Ogoni.

Looking for Modern Art: Rethinking Art History

Many twentieth century European artists, such as Paul Gauguin or Pablo Picasso, were influenced by art brought to Europe from African and Asian colonies. How to frame these Modernist works today when the idea of the primitive in art is problematic?

Pirates: Threatening Global Trade

The French researcher Bertrand Monnet visits pirates in Nigeria and Somalia to learn how they make money from oil theft and kidnapping.

Africa: Land and People

This film takes a close look at Africa's varied geography and the people who settled and live in these region. Also it contrasts the rural villages and the modern cities.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

60 years ago, in the Algerian desert, an atomic bomb, equivalent to three or even four times Hiroshima, exploded. Named the “Blue Gerboise”, it was the first atomic bomb tested by France, and of hitherto unrivaled power. This 70 kiloton plutonium bomb was launched in the early morning, in the Reggane region, in southern Algeria, during the French colonial era. If this test allowed France to become the 4th nuclear power in the world, it had catastrophic repercussions. France had, at the time, certified that the radiation was well below the standard safety threshold. However, in 2013, declassified files revealed that the level of radioactivity had been much higher than announced, and had been recorded from West Africa to the south of Spain.

The Leopardess

Leopards are considered to be extremely shy big cats. Only a few animals can match the elegance of these feline predators. The cautious hunters are rarely seen in the wild for more than a few seconds. The cats can be observed more extensively when they rest asleep in a tree and recover from the mostly nocturnal hunt. But a leopardess has switched to hunting in broad daylight. Its home along the brook bed of the Olare Orok offers everything a mother needs to protect and nourish its offspring: picturesque rocks and dense bush, a landscape in which the big cat can disappear in seconds to sneak up on potential prey, which includes warthogs and antelopes. But hyenas and lions are always ready to contest for its territory and nourishment. The renowned wildlife filmmaker Reinhard Radke managed to capture astonishing insights into the social life and hunting tactics of the ambush hunters in the Maasai Mara.

Un Combat Singulier

Plot unavailable

Breaking Through: The Rise of African Cycling

Biniam Girmay’s recent successes have shown that African cycling is on the up, ready at last to follow athletics and football into the big time. But why has it taken so long, and what’s needed to take it all the way? Set against the beauty and battles of the Tour du Rwanda, we explore the past, present and future of riders from Eritrea, South Africa, Rwanda and more, meeting Girmay and the rising stars hot on his heels, as well as the people passionate about giving these riders the opportunities they deserve. This is the story of the next great continent in cycling - Africa.

A So-Called Archive

With a forensic lens, Onyeka Igwe's A So-Called Archive interrogate the decomposing repositories of Empire. Blending footage shot over the past year in two separate colonial archive buildings - one in Lagos, Nigeria, and the other in Bristol, United Kingdom - this double portrait considers the 'sonic shadows' that colonial images continue to generate, despite the disintegration of the memory and their materials. It mixes the genres of the radio play, the corporate video tour and detective noir, with a haunting and critical approach to the horror of discovery.

Time to Change

Angolan director and screenwriter Pocas Pascoal reminds us that it’s time for a change, proposing through this film a look at colonialism, capitalism, and their impact on global biodiversity. We observe that the destruction of the ecosystem goes back a long way and is already underway through land exploitation, big game hunting, and the exploitation of man by man.

The Panafrican Festival in Algiers

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.

Africa Adventure

A true film account of a three-month safari in the big game hunting areas of the Dark Continent, undoctored with any faked plot or contrivance.

Dreams have no titles

Part of Zineb Sedira's art installation for the French Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale. A piece where Sedira explores her passion for the militant cinema of the 60s and 70s.

Montezuma

Montezuma is a 2009 BBC Television documentary film in which Dan Snow examines the reign of the Aztec Emperor Moctezuma II.

Escape from the World's Most Dangerous Place

Successful model Samira Hashi makes an emotional return to Somalia, one of the most dangerous places in the world and the place she was born. Civil war broke out in 1991, 10 days after Samira's birth, but two years later her family managed to flee the country and she grew up in the UK.Now, as Samira and the war both turn 21, she's going back for the first time to visit the people and places she left behind. The contrast with her safe and glamorous life in London could not be starker as she experiences firsthand the war's effect on a generation of young people growing up in conflict.

L'Orientalisme

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.

The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey

Many geneticists and archaeologists have long surmised that human life began in Africa. Dr. Spencer Wells, one of a group of scientists studying the origin of human life, offers evidence and theories to support such a thesis in this PBS special. He claims that Africa was populated by only a few thousand people that some deserted their homeland in a conquest that has resulted in global domination.

Liyana

A talented group of orphaned children in Swaziland create a fictional heroine and send her on a dangerous quest.

How Much I Love You

Beginning with a promotional reel encouraging farming investments in Algeria and ending with the secret 1950s nuclear tests that France conducted using Algerian prisoners, How Much I Love You appropriates archival footage produced by the French colonial powers in Algeria. Meddour’s approach is disarmingly simple and yet awe-inspiring—his caustic undoing of colonial discourse is underscored by a liberating release of humor.

Mining for God

America has long been called a Christian nation. In fact, over 70% of adults in America identify themselves as Christian. Yet when filmmaker Brandon McGuire heads to the streets to ask a few clarifying questions about how Christianity is defined within our culture, he is shocked by the answers he finds. This provocative documentary takes us deep within the American mind and brings to the surface the big ideas that have influenced the way we think about ourselves and about God.

Prophecy - The Africa of Pasolini

Pasolini seeks in Africa the peasant and revolutionary authenticity he had sought in the Roman villages. This hope will end in a new disappointment: Africa is a reservoir of irremediable contradictions that will explode in the massacres of yesterday and today. It is an Africa that starts from the outskirts of Rome, but thousands of non-EU citizens flock to the sub-proletariat of the villages.

Wodaabe: Herdsmen of the Sun

Herzog's documentary of the Wodaabe people of the Sahara/Sahel region. Particular attention is given to the tribe's spectacular courtship rituals and 'beauty pageants', where eligible young men strive to outshine each other and attract mates by means of lavish makeup, posturing and facial movements.

Djembefola

African drummer leaves village, makes it big in the world. Great drumming!!

TUNAHAKI

Tunahaki is the extraordinary story of nine gifted orphans who are acrobats. We follow their journey as an American volunteer takes them from Africa to study with Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas. They end up touring the States and raising hundreds of thousands of dollars, more than enough to build a permanent home. But how have the kids' experiences in America affected them? And how will it change things back home in Tanzania? Tunahaki's heartfelt journey gives us something new to ponder as we reach across the world to help those less fortunate—is it always the right thing to do?

Mariner of the Mountains

Filmmaker Karim Aïnouz decides to take a boat, cross the Mediterranean, and embark on his first journey to Algeria. Accompanied by the memory of his mother, Iracema, and his camera, Aïnouz gives a detailed account of the journey to his father’s homeland, interweaving present, past, and future.

Circus Baobab

French filmmaker Laurent Chevallier always wanted to make a documentary on an African circus, but there were no native circuses on the continent. So Chevallier decided to help found a circus in Guinea. 36 young people were chosen from the city of Conakry to participate in what would become Circus Baobab. A group of French circus artists were imported to train the participants for 2 years in acrobatics and trapeze. Then the group took their show on the road. This film is Chevallier's account of the troupe's inaugural tour in Guinea, from March 1 - April 11, 2000.

Silverback

Feature-length documentary following award-winning wildlife cameraman Vianet Djenguet as he documents a gruelling but vital mission to ‘habituate’ a notoriously protective 450lb silverback, in a last-ditch effort to save the critically endangered eastern lowland gorillas from extinction.

Congo: White King, Red Rubber, Black Death

This true, astonishing story describes how King Leopold II of Belgium turned Congo into its private colony between 1885 and 1908. Under his control, Congo became a gulag labor camp of shocking brutality. Leopold posed as the protector of Africans fleeing Arab slave-traders but, in reality, he carved out an empire based on terror to harvest rubber.

L'Avenir est ailleurs

Plot unavailable

African Cats

African Cats captures the real-life love, humor and determination of the majestic kings of the savanna. The story features Mara, an endearing lion cub who strives to grow up with her mother’s strength, spirit and wisdom; Sita, a fearless cheetah and single mother of five mischievous newborns; and Fang, a proud leader of the pride who must defend his family from a once banished lion.

CHoosing at Twenty

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.

An Unhealed Wound - The Harkis in the Algerian War

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".