Hadj Smaine Mohamed Seghir

Paratrooper commander Colonel Mathieu, a former French Resistance fighter during World War II, is sent to Algeria to reinforce efforts to squelch the uprisings of the Algerian War. There he faces Ali la Pointe, a former petty criminal who, as the leader of the Algerian Front de Liberation Nationale, directs terror strategies against the colonial French government occupation. As each side resorts to ever-increasing brutality, no violent act is too unthinkable.

In 1880, in colonized Algeria, it was decided that the Algerian peasants of the Ouarsenis mountains would see their lands dispossessed in favor of the French colonists. Two methods were used to achieve this, either by sheer force or by a ploy forcing the fellahs to pay fines too high to be paid. The uprooted must then leave for the cities, swelling the mass of proletarians in the slums ...

Seen through the filtered lens of boyhood memories, award-winning director Mohamed Lakhdar-Hamina crafted this half-fictional, half-autobiographical account of a brief period in the history of an Algerian village. It is 1940, and the quiet town is ruled by French colonialists appointed by the Vichy government. Algerians are being called up for service in the Vichy military, and Jews in the village are in danger of deportation. A beautiful young schoolteacher named Claire Boyer (Veronique Jannot) arrives in town and turns every male head within miles, including 14-year-old Mouloud (Merwan Lakhdar-Hamina, the director's son). Simon Attal (Michel Boujenah), a fellow teacher and a Jew, is also attracted to Claire, and so is Mouloud's older brother. Suddenly two murders occur in the village, Simon is in danger of being deported, and the tone shifts from the dreams of boyhood to the realities of manhood.

A meticulous chronicle of the evolution of the Algerian national movement from 1939 until the outbreak of the revolution on November 1, 1954, the film unequivocally demonstrates that the "Algerian War" is not an accident of history, but a slow process of suffering and warlike revolts, uninterrupted, from the start of colonization in 1830, until this "Red All Saints' Day" of November 1, 1954. At its center, Ahmed gradually awakens to political awareness against colonization, under the gaze of his son, a symbol of the new Algeria, and that of Miloud, half-mad haranguer, half-prophet, incarnation of Popular memory of the revolt, the liberation of Algeria and its people.

A police office in Algiers sometime after independence. Mr Rachid, father, around fifty years old, former colonial official transferred to the cinema annex library. Mr. Rachid, disappointed and exasperated by his sad life, faced with an inspector who questions him, tries to explain: why did he kill his former department head after a long night of wandering?

The transformations of the daily life of the Algerian people during the destructive French occupation, then during the war of liberation. While military repression is in full swing, a peasant woman finds herself alone in her mountain home when her only son is kidnapped by French soldiers shortly after her husband's death during a raid. One day, seeing a dead chicken, which she considers a bad omen, she decides to leave home and embarks on a painful journey through the mountains. Accompanied by a couple of chickens, she moves from one detention camp to another in a desperate search for her missing son. The film is inspired by the events experienced by the director's family.

In the streets of the Casbah of Algiers, an FLN fighter pursued by the colonial police hands over confidential documents to Mourad, an Algerian child shouting newspapers who must at all costs pass them on to the resistance. But the police are on their trail and will do anything to get them back.

The film traces the story of a patrol of the Algerian National Liberation Army (ALN), whose mission is to transport a prisoner French soldier to the Tunisian border. Through the march of this group of guerrillas we witness the spirit of sacrifice and combativeness of these men from the people. The patrol will be decimated, but a young peasant will take over and complete the mission.