The Death Knell

Lumières

Long quest for a director specializing in commissioned films, who after a depression rediscovers his loved ones, his Casbah district, himself. Taken in hand, for a while, by his Islamist neighbor, it is above all the meeting with an old projectionist giving him a censored history of cinema and Algeria, which helps him to change, and to accept his own fantasies, embodied by Marilyn Monroe and the Andalusian.

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.

Four Days of a Partisan

2039... A third world war on every continent... Isolated in an old building with his partner, a young man refuses to seek shelter during an alert. He rejects all historical awareness. But tragic circumstances will decide otherwise. Day One: BEYOND THE WIND. Day Two: VERTICAL COMBAT. Day Three: HORIZONTAL COMBAT. 2045. Day Four: BEYOND THE WIND.

Une Nation, l'Algérie

Quand tu disais, Valéry

Divided into five parts, this film traces the long strike by workers at the Caravelair caravan factory in Trigniac, near Saint-Nazaire, led by the C.G.T. and C.F.D.T. unions. Shot in 1975, the film achieved the strange feat of being produced entirely by workers' producers - 15,000 of them paid in advance for their tickets - and of being amortized, and even made profitable, by being shown outside the commercial circuit alone.

Commune présence

Guided by a letter from an childhood friend, a young man visits places and people from the past marked by history and commitment. He then meets other people throughout the night, looking for ways to act and imagine collectively.

Des goûts et des couleurs

The owner of a luxurious yacht seduces attractive women to deliver them to a black crew member.

Déjà le sang de mai ensemençait novembre

The essay by René Vautier, "Déjà le sang de Mai ensemençait Novembre", starts with the recapitulation of the representations of Algeria throughout the history of visual arts in France in an effort to explore the causes for the quest for independence.

Le Remords

A filmmaker witnesses an act of racist police violence in Paris. He discusses with a friend whether and how he should make a film out of this.

Guerre aux images en Algérie

Le poisson commande...

When the three popes of militant film in Brittany, grouped together in the Union of Breton Film Production (UPCB), respond with talent to an order from fishermen's bosses... Le poisson commande includes some very beautiful images of the work at sea, as well as being an apology for industrial fishing. People of Lorient will be able to discover a fishing port then in full activity.

J'ai Huit Ans

With my wife, Olga Poliakoff, we made "I'm Eight Years Old" based on an idea by René Vautier. Using drawings by Algerian children who were refugees in Tunisia, the film immerses the viewer in the traumatized world of these children, horrifically linking the word "France" with words like "kill," "burn," and "torture." The live-action footage was shot in Tunisia by René Vautier and myself. A second set of drawings was compiled, and the children's testimonies were recorded by Olga at the Algerian-Tunisian border. The entire film was edited in collaboration with Jacqueline Meppiel. The first screening took place in Paris on February 10, 1962, without any precautions or authorization, for about fifty people. Sponsored by the Maurice Audin Committee, the film then circulated clandestinely throughout France in dozens of copies and was seen by tens of thousands of people while the OAS was carrying out bombings in Paris and Algiers – Yann Le Masson

Les Ajoncs

An unemployed Algerian worker leaves Paris by hitchhiking. He soon found himself in Brittany and, seduced by the beauty of wild gorse, eventually established himself as a gorse merchant. But for problems with parking his little cart, he had a rough explanation with a law enforcement officer. The happy intervention of factory workers, the eager kindness they showed him, saved him from despair. This film is part of a trilogy "Them And Us" with the films "Les 3 Cousins" and "Techniquement Si Simple".

Techniquement Si Simple

Les Trois Cousins

The Three Cousins ​​is a comedy-drama by René Vautier released in 1970 about the living conditions of three Algerian immigrant cousins ​​looking for work in Paris. Housed in a narrow construction shed, the coal stove will cause them to suffocate. The Three Cousins ​​won the Best Human Rights Film Award in Strasbourg in 1970.

To Be Twenty in the Aures

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.

Hearts and Minds

Many times during his presidency, Lyndon B. Johnson said that ultimate victory in the Vietnam War depended upon the U.S. military winning the "hearts and minds" of the Vietnamese people. Filmmaker Peter Davis uses Johnson's phrase in an ironic context in this anti-war documentary, filmed and released while the Vietnam War was still under way, juxtaposing interviews with military figures like U.S. Army Chief of Staff William C. Westmoreland with shocking scenes of violence and brutality.