Film Lounge

Four films reflect largely unknown aspects of the Algerian war of independence and the period that followed: The role of film and photography in coming to terms with French colonial rule is documented in Les cinéastes de la liberté – an homage to the filmmakers who confronted a worldwide public with images of suffering and struggle. Cartouches Gauloises shows the last phases of this war through the eyes of the eleven-year-old son of an FLN fighter and his French and Arab friends. The film was entered in the 2007 competition in Cannes. Although a cease-fire was agreed in the Evian Accords of 1962, the French continued their atomic bomb tests in the Sahara. L’Algérie, de Gaulle et la bombe documents the explosions – many times stronger than that of the Hiroshima bomb – that lit up the sky over Algeria, as well as the scale of the atomic weapons program. Biyouna, Youssou N`Dour, Gnawa Diffusion, Alpha Blondy, Cesária Évora, Khaled, Isabel Adjani and Danny Glover are just a few of the artists who performed at the Festival Panafricain d`Alger in 2009. The documentary film Africa Is Back shows them and the vision of a strong and independent Africa that was also projected at the first festival twenty years previously.

LES CINÉASTES DE LA LIBERTÉ, R: Saïd Mehdaoui, Algerien 2009, 70 min, OmE

CARTOUCHES GAULOISES, R: Mehdi Charef, Algerien/Frankreich 2007, 92 min, OmE

L’ALGÉRIE, DE GAULLE ET LA BOMBE, R: Larbi Benchiha, Algerien/ Frankreich/ 2010, 52 min, OmE

AFRICA IS BACK, R: Saled Brahimi, Kharroubi Chergui, Algerien 2010, 95 min, OmE