A Celebration of Hope

This docu-fiction recounts the difficulties overcome by an ALN ​​detachment whose perilous mission is to transport weapons and ammunition from Tunisia across the Algerian Sahara during the Algerian liberation war (1954-1962) against the French army of occupation.

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.

Illustrated with archival photographs, animations and live action, this film explores the history and historical and spiritual heritage of Emir Abd El-Kader. Algerian leader of the 19th century, was admired by Abraham Lincoln and celebrated to this day by the Red Cross as a great humanitarian. Emir Abd el-Kader, the man who challenged the French armies from 1832 to 1847 before creating the bases of a real Algerian state, is today considered by independent Algeria as one of the most outstanding figures. of its history. The nobility of his attitude after his capture and the very effective protection he brought to the Christians of Damascus at the end of his life also earned him great prestige among his former adversaries. A documentary told in dialectal Arabic by the voice of Amazigh Kateb.

From 1954 to 1962, during the Algerian War, French citizens provided concrete assistance to the FLN in France: sheltering refugees, forging documents, facilitating border crossings, and transporting funds. Whether committed to the ideals of the Republic or driven by Third Worldist revolutionaries, they sought to build a bridge of friendship between nations. They paid for their commitment with imprisonment and exile. Four veterans of the Jeanson network recall this period. Today, they are no longer seen as traitors or heroes, but as witnesses recounting "their" war... Silent for 30 years, the "Jeanson network" now bears witness to this history.

From the early 1960s to the mid-1970s, independent Algeria provided significant support to anti-colonial movements and revolutionaries worldwide. Successive presidents, Ahmed Ben Bella and then Houari Boumédiène, made Algiers a haven for activists fighting against colonial and racial oppression. Algiers the White became Algiers the Red. The internationalist Che Guevara established his base of operations there for his guerrilla activities in Africa. The African-American leader Eldridge Cleaver made it the international headquarters of the Black Panther Party. During this period, Algiers was known as "The Mecca of Revolutionaries."

In 1958, in the midst of the Algerian War and two months before the World Cup, the French Football Federation (FFF) discovered on April 15th that nine of its players of Algerian origin had secretly left France to join the headquarters of the National Liberation Front (FLN) in Tunis, where the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic (GPRA) was based. They chose to leave everything behind—careers, fame, money—to support the FLN cause: the independence of the Algerian people. Their daring escape was worthy of a thriller and made headlines across the international press. For four years, the FLN team toured the world and became the standard-bearer for a people. FIFA refused to recognize the team and threatened federations that played against it with sanctions. Nevertheless, the team made a lasting impression with 57 wins, 14 draws, and 12 losses in 83 matches. Ferhat Abbas, president of the GPRA, told them, "You have gained ten years for the cause of independent Algeria."

The life and political activism of Messali Hadj (1898-1974), an Algerian internationalist politician who played a pioneering role in the process leading to Algerian independence, which he demanded as early as 1927. He was initially secretary of the North African Star (ENA), then in 1937 he founded the Algerian People's Party (PPA), in 1946 he founded the Movement for the Triumph of Democratic Liberties (MTLD), and finally in 1954, the Algerian National Movement (MNA). In 1937, the leadership of the North African Star (ENA) created its flag, green with a white star and crescent. Messali Hadj's wife, Emilie Busquant-Messali, simply sewed this ENA flag by machine; it would later become the flag of the PPA. In 1943, Messali Hadj, in conjunction with the party leadership, created the ENA-PPA flag, green and white with a red star and crescent, which would later become the current flag of the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria.

On September 13, 2018, President Emmanuel Macron visited Josette Audin at her home in Bagnolet to ask for her forgiveness, presenting her with a declaration acknowledging that her husband had died under torture at the hands of a "legally established system" implemented by the former French colonial power in Algeria. This acknowledgment, however belated, is a victory for Josette Audin and her family, but above all, it is a victory for human rights, achieved together by mathematicians and historians. This film retraces this shared commitment against torture and state abuses, first within the Audin Committee and then within the Committee of Mathematicians, which also intervened to support other mathematicians imprisoned and sometimes tortured around the world.

In Algiers, in June 1957, Maurice Audin, a 25-year-old mathematician, was arrested by French paratroopers. His wife, Josette, and their three children never saw him again. This documentary interweaves testimonies from French and Algerian protagonists: activists for Algerian independence, lawyers, historians, and military personnel. Drawing on the research of historian Pierre Vidal-Naquet, it blends archival footage, newspaper articles, books, drawings, and reenactments to reconstruct the context of this disappearance and denounce the torture and murder practiced in Algeria. Josette Audin is the central figure and the moral compass of this film.

Collectively made Algerian film.

At just 19 years old, in 1942, Anne Beaumanoir had already experienced so much: involved in the clandestine communist youth movement, she had begun medical studies, secretly distributed parcels, saved Jewish children, changed her identity, lost her first love, and narrowly escaped death several times. Twelve years later, as a courier for the FLN (National Liberation Front), she was sentenced by France to 10 years in prison for terrorism, but fled to Algeria where she became the principal advisor to the Minister of Health under Ben Bella. Until the military coup, she went to Switzerland where she would head the neurophysiology and epileptology division of the Geneva University Hospital for 26 years. Through the eyes of Annette, witnesses, and rediscovered friends, this film recounts Algeria, France and its litany of buried tragedies, racism, and the fight for freedom and independence. Annette ultimately instills in us a necessary and difficult-to-define virtue: courage.

In 2009, the Algerian team won their match against Egypt, thus qualifying for the 2010 World Cup, after significant tensions during the first leg, which included the stoning of the Algerian players' bus. The artist Amina Menia recalls that the collective euphoria of these celebrations seemed almost disproportionate and unreal, reminiscent of the popular jubilation surrounding Algeria's independence in 1962. She draws a parallel between political and sporting history through the use of archival footage and two interviews, one with Rachid Mekhloufi, star of AS Saint-Étienne and an emblematic figure of Algerian football. In the second interview, Slimane Zeghidour, a writer and journalist, offers a detached and critical perspective on the impact of football on the masses. By tracing these links, she examines the relationships between national representation, sense of belonging, fervor and the destiny of a community.

Delve into the story of the Algerian footballers who traded European pitches to join the fight for independence. In 1958, in the midst of the War of Independence, talented players secretly left their clubs to form the FLN team – a living symbol of the Algerian people's struggle. This clandestine team, banned by FIFA, served as a mouthpiece for the Algerian provisional government until 1962. Footballer Rachid Mekhloufi explained: “This departure of the best Algerian players playing in France was no accident. With the control of the media, few French people knew what was happening in Algeria. The FLN representatives in France were ahead of the curve in terms of publicity. Truly ahead of the curve, because a move like this allowed the French people and the rest of the world to open their eyes.”

In 1954, Daniel Vérin, a young schoolteacher of Algerian descent, made a radical decision: he turned his back on colonial France and joined the Algerian insurgents. He enlisted in the FLN, then the ALN, and became "Ali," a soldier in the struggle for independence. At the end of the war in 1962, he became an Algerian citizen. But the long-awaited independence did not bring Ali the taste of victory. On a scholarship, he went to study in the United States. Upon his return, the Algerian administration forbade him from entering his homeland. Rejected by the country he had defended, he obtained American citizenship in 1969. Condemned by France for his activism and ignored by Algeria for more than forty years, Ali was not officially recognized as a mujahid, a fighter of the Revolution, until 2004.

In 1936, Gaston Revel entered the École Normale in Algiers, where he was supposed to learn how to "educate the native." It was also during this time that he began to take an interest in politics: he was drawn to the Popular Front, then to Spanish anarchism, and finally to communism. From 1940 to 1955, he taught in Algeria, first in rural areas, then in Bejaia. He returned to Europe because of the war and landed in Provence in September 1914, following the Allied advance. It was in Bejaia, in 1945, that he became fully committed to the Algerian Communist Party: in 1953, he ran for municipal office in the second electoral district (reserved for Algerians) and sat alongside the Muslims. In 1955, at the beginning of the war, he was forced to leave Algeria against his will. But, like thousands of other "red feet," he returned there in 1962 and resumed his teaching career. From all those years, he left a complete and deeply committed record, many letters, notebooks, and newspaper articles.

"Djazaïrouna", produced by the cinema service of the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic (GPRA), is a montage film intended to inform the international community at the UN in 1959 on the objectives pursued by the Algerian resistance during the war of 'Algeria. Independence in Algeria (1954-1962). In 1959, Djamel-Eddine Chanderli and Mohammed Lakdar-Hamina produced Djazaïrouna (Our Algeria) from images taken by René Vautier and Doctor Pierre Chaulet. This film, completed a little later and will result in the film “The Voice of the People”. This documentary on the history of Algeria through a montage of current events, traces the political and military actions of the A.L.N, the demonstrations of December 1960, and the attack on a fortified French base on the border between Algeria and Tunisia.

Summer 2019, Zak wanders the streets of Algiers and dives into the Hirak, a series of protests taking place in Algeria since February of that year. His chronicles are nourished by encounters with men and women who take an enlightened look at their country and its struggles: through their words, the strength and complexity of such a movement emerge.

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The exceptional portrait of a pacifist general, the only senior officer to have spoken out against torture. This precious testimony still remains censored in France, since no national channel has to date decided to program this documentary. Son and brother of a soldier, General Pâris de Bollardière was destined for a career in arms. He was, for many years, one of the most brilliant representatives of this adventurer career in France, from Narvik to the Algerian War. After fighting in the French maquis, he reached Indochina, where he suddenly found himself in the aggressor's camps. His beliefs are strongly shaken. But it is in Algeria, where the French army practices torture and summary executions, that he takes the big turn. He expresses his contempt to Massu, and is relieved of his command. Until his death in 1986, Jacques de Bollardière fought for world peace, from the Larzac plateaus to the Mururoa atolls.

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