Documentary / History
In 1964, Algeria, just two years after the end of the war of independence, found itself catapulted into new contradictions, a still rural territory which responded to the modernity brought by the revolution. Filmed during the winter of 1964-1965 by the young director Ennio…
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In the heart of the Camargue region, in the south of France, Jawad and Belka find freedom in their love of Camargue races. For these young Maghrebi men, the event is more than a simple tradition. Facing off with a bull is an opportunity to establish their place in the arena—and in French society. But at what cost?
Has everything really been said about the Algerian war? Although the archives are opening up, almost fifty years after the signing of the Evian Agreements (March 18, 1962), direct witnesses are beginning to disappear. They are, however, unique bearers of history, often the only ones able to illustrate the harsh reality of a long-hidden period. Gérard Zwang, surgeon of the contingent between May 1956 and June 1958, is one of these essential witnesses who help us discover an original history of the Algerian War. During his service, in charge of treating the most atrocious wounds of his fellow soldiers, he sees the war from the side of its victims. He did not fight with a machine pistol in his hand, but behind the closed doors of an operating room where life gives way to death in a matter of seconds.
The Kabyle people define themselves first and foremost through the spoken word. Every gesture, every moment of their daily lives can give rise to a language of verse, metaphors, and proverbs. After all, isn't it said that in the mountain foothills they call home, verbal dueling was a common pastime? It is a reality difficult to visualize when one looks at the immigrant society where these men and women—often illiterate—are relegated solely to the roles of manual laborers and housewives; one can hardly imagine the eloquent orators they become when they return to their native tongue.
This film presents the point of view of an Arab from Algeria who rebels against colonization. He analyzes the process of awareness, the transition to revolt, to armed insurrection. Algeria and the settlers are seen through this lens and not the way a Frenchman saw the country. He gives voice to the Arabs at a time when this word was not heard: sometimes it was not even produced, at least publicly. The testimonies are based on real propositions, most of them were made to the author during his stay in Algeria from 1948 to 1956, then in 1958 and 1959. The comments are borrowed from the texts of Arab theorists of the revolution Algerian. This film thus completely evacuates the point of view of those who are not insurgents; he does not give the opinion of the colonists. It is the direct expression of what was the revolt of a colonized person: it thus constitutes the very type of the historical document.
The Aït Atta tribe of the High Atlas mountain range in Morocco preserves their ancestral right of access to the agdal, a communal land management system that dates back hundreds of years. The film follows Ben Youssef family’s arduous transhumance journey from the desert-like landscape of Nkob to the green pastures of Agdal Igourdane, throughout uneven terrain of steep climbs and descents of these High Atlas mountains. They migrate each summer with their 800 goats, donkeys, mules, camels and dogs, as they embark on this formidable journey on foot.
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.
The climbing couple Heinz Mariacher and Luisa Iovane abandon their usual winter training spot to go in search of places more conducive to free climbing in Algeria in the Sahara desert, more precisely in the Hoggar massif, which saw pass the cream of world climbing Lionel Terray, Roger Frison-Roche, Lucien Bérardini, Michel Vaucher, Pierre Mazeaud, Guido Monzino, Patrick Edlinger, Patrick Berhault and many others. Their objective, to climb the east face of Garet El Djenoun, 500 m high, failed because the wall was too smooth and the cracks unstable. The journey continues in the Hoggar massif towards other peaks, where they find the climbing conditions they were hoping for. An overhang in the face of Tizouyag Nord will prove to be a major challenge for Heinz Mariacher.
In 1971, after being rejected by Hollywood, Bruce Lee returned to his parents’ homeland of Hong Kong to complete four iconic films. Charting his struggles between two worlds, this portrait explores questions of identity and representation through the use of rare archival footage, interviews with loved ones and Bruce’s own writings.
In February 1966, Pierre Mazeaud and Lucien Berardini traveled to the Atakor massif, in the Hoggar mountain range of the Sahara in southern Algeria. There, they attempted a challenging first ascent: the Takouba spur, one of the peaks adjacent to Garet El Djenoun, a legendary mountain in the Hoggar massif, first climbed by Roger Frison-Roche and Raymond Coche in 1935. The documentary, superbly filmed by Jacques Ertaud, won the Grand Prize at the Trento International Mountain Film Festival in 1966.
This documentary film by Pierluca Rossi recounts a journey to the southern Algerian Sahara, near Amguid, a small Tuareg village renowned for its unusual nearby crater. In the Tefedest massif, with its mythical summit, Garet el Djenoun, on the slopes of a vast sand dune rising to over 400 meters, one can practice an unusual sport: sandboarding, a new technique to try. Surprising speeds can be reached, and participants can familiarize themselves with the equipment of this new sport, perhaps paving the way for new practices.
Pierluca Rossi's Lungo La Pista Dei Contrabbandieri (1990) is an adventure documentary about a mountain bike crossing of the 700 km between the towns of Tamarasset and Djanet in the southern Algerian Sahara, from the Hoggar mountain range to the Tassili n'Ajjer. This crossing, supported by a 4x4 truck and a motorcycle, and never before undertaken by bicycle, emphasizes the rediscovered dimension of slowness, similar to the caravans of the Tuareg, in contrast to the unnatural speed of mechanized desert travel in the 1990s, which was considered the norm at the time due to the distorted image provided by the Paris-Dakar Rally and other similar events.
