The Last Queen

Directed by Kamal Dehane

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 Lorenzini, it is the first international Algerian production which paints a rare portrait in color of a multifaceted nation, far from the simplistic vision created by the press and the French army. Produced by Casbah Film, Les Mains Libres (initially titled Tronc De Figuier) bears witness to the stigmata of colonization and the future of free Algeria throughout the Algerian territory and reveals the richness of its landscapes and the diversity of its traditions . The documentary, using the aesthetics of militant cinema of the time, is made up of four scenes: Sea and Desert, The Struggle, The Earth, Freedom.

In Algiers in 1993, while the civil war is starting, Mrs Osmane's tenants have to endure her bad temper. Her husband left her and the fear to lose her respectability haunt her. The former member of the Resistance during the Independence War persists in controlling the slightest moves of the households rather than struggle against her own frustrations. Learning her daughter is in love, the possibility of finding herself alone will push her to the limit: The symbolical Mrs Osmane "harem" is about to collapse.

Rachid is a young man who survives in Morroco boxing in clandestine fights in order to save enough money with which to pay a smuggler, and be able to cross the Strait of Gibraltar with his two friends.

As a boy, Raoul is reared by an Arab tribe in Algerian Sahara. Years later, as a refined Europeanized gentleman, he falls in love with Barbara, an officer's daughter, who rejects him when she discovers his background. Affecting a raid, he captures her and then secretly buys her at a slave auction. When she is rescued by French troops, however, his ancestry is established and they find happiness together.

Two deaf and dumb children. She is the daughter of an American Oil engineer. He is the son of an Algerian farmer. They meet and manage to communicate, transcending all the cultural barriers that separate them.

Filmed chronicle by mountain filmmaker Mario Fantin, of the 1964-1965 expedition of the Italian mountaineer Guido Monzino to the summits of Hoggar in the Algerian Sahara with the ascents of Garet el Djenoun, Tizouyag Nord, Saouinan and Iharen. The mountain ranges of the Hoggar desert turn out to be more complex and interesting than most mountaineers suspected at the time.

In the heart of the Hoggar Mountains, Algerian and French climbers meet on the legendary walls of the central Sahara. More than just an ascent, Tissalatine tells the story of an encounter with oneself, with the land, and with history. The film also retraces Thomas Dulac's return, ten years later, to a site he helped to open up. Driven by the profound voice of singer Djam and the vision of director Hamza Mendil, Tissalatine unveils a living, vibrant Sahara, far removed from clichés, in a sweeping epic of adventure, brotherhood, and spiritual elevation.

Made just three years after the end of the French-Algerian War (1954-1962), Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle Of Algiers instantly ignited discussions of this complex historical period. Using the film as a point of reference, this 2004 documentary attempts to reconstruct the Algerian experience of the battle for independence.

“La Zerda and the songs of oblivion” (1982) is one of only two films made by the Algerian novelist Assia Djebar, with “La Nouba des femmes du mont Chenoua” (1977). Powerful poetic essay based on archives, in which Assia Djebar – in collaboration with the poet Malek Alloula and the composer Ahmed Essyad – deconstructs the French colonial propaganda of the Pathé-Gaumont newsreels from 1912 to 1942, to reveal the signs of revolt among the subjugated North African population. Through the reassembly of these propaganda images, Djebar recovers the history of the Zerda ceremonies, suggesting that the power and mysticism of this tradition were obliterated and erased by the predatory voyeurism of the colonial gaze. This very gaze is thus subverted and a hidden tradition of resistance and struggle is revealed, against any exoticizing and orientalist temptation.

In Algeria in 1954, in a village in the Aurès region, poverty reigns over peasants enslaved by colonial administrators and Algerian landowners. Noua, in love with the son of a peasant dispossessed of his land, must be sold to a wealthy landowner.

Parisian authorities clash with the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) in director Alain Tasma’s recounting of one of the darkest moments of the Algerian War of Independence. As the war wound to a close and violence persisted in the streets of Paris, the FLN and its supporters adopted the tactic of murdering French policemen in hopes of forcing a withdrawal. When French law enforcement retaliated by brutalizing Algerians and imposing a strict curfew, the FLN organizes a peaceful demonstration that drew over 11,000 supporters, resulting in an order from the Paris police chief to take brutal countermeasures. Told through the eyes of both French policemen as well as Algerian protestors, Tasma’s film attempts to get to the root of the tragedy by presenting both sides of the story.