Pierre Clément

Directed by Pierre Clément and Djamel-Eddine Chanderli, produced by the FLN Information Service in 1958, this film is a rare document. Pierre Clément is considered one of the founders of Algerian cinema. In this film he shows images of Algerian refugee camps in Tunisia and their living conditions. A restored DVD version released in 2016, from the 35 mm original donated by Pierre Clément to the Contemporary International Documentation Library (BDIC).

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.

At the time of Tunisian independence, owners of large boats decide to sell, while many small fishermen soon find themselves without work. Their wives then decide to pool their gold rings to sell them and thus buy boats.

This rambling political melodrama tells the story of a French Breton who learns about colonialism while teaching native students in France's colonies of Tunisia and Algeria and returns to his native Brittany to see that the same conditions prevail there.

The action takes place in a metallurgical factory which was part of the Pechiney-Ugine-Külhman trust in Couëron, Loire-Atlantique, in 1975. To show their solidarity with their husbands on strike, workers' wives invaded the director's office and obtained in two hours what was refused to them for months. But the management complained and sued. Twelve wives were charged with forcible confinement. The mobilization then widened. The women called on the Bretagne Cinema Production Unit (UPCB) to make a film about their struggle. Narrating the courageous action of solidarity of women with the strikers of the factory and the emergence of a collective awareness, both feminist and working-class, the film is also an echo chamber sensitive to the aspirations of the twelve women who were charged.