They Joined the Front

Jan 1, 2012

1h 1m

★ 10.0

Overview

In this film, four key witnesses, who live in Algeria today, as full-fledged Agerians, show us what this colonization was really like, so "beneficial" that they themselves perceived it as the oppression of one people by another. Three of them, who today would be called "pieds noirs," in other words, those Europeans to whom France, the occupying power, gave the best land, taken from the indigenous populations, work, and exclusive rights, not shared by the entire population, lived rather well compared to the majority of the "natives." The fourth was far from all that and lived in Argentina. Annie Steiner, Felix Colozzi, Pierre Chaulet, and Roberto Muniz explain to us what led them to show solidarity with the struggle of the weak, the humiliated, and to risk their freedom and their lives by committing to liberate Algeria.

Genres

Documentary

History

Production Companies

Agence Algérienne pour le Rayonnement Culturel

Ministère de la Culture et des Arts

Djinn

They Joined the Front Trailers

No Trailers found.

Cast

Self

Félix Colozzi

Self

Annie Steiner

Self

Pierre Chaulet

Self

Roberto Muñiz

"I often say sociology is a martial art, a means of self-defence. Basically, you use it to defend yourself, without having the right to use it for unfair attacks." (Pierre Bourdieu) The world has witnesses who speak out loud what others keep to themselves. They are neither gurus, nor masters, but those who consider that the city and the world can be thought out. The sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu is one such witness." Over a three- year period, Pierre Carles' camera followed him through different situations: a short conversation with Günter Grass, a lively conference with the inhabitants of a working-class suburb, his relations with his students and colleagues and his plea that sociology be part of the life of the city. His thinking has a sort of familiarity, which means it is always within our reach. It is the thinking of a French intellectual who has chosen to think his times.

6.8

Be Water

Jan 25, 2020

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.

6.7

Aleph

Apr 30, 2021

Structured as a labyrinth-like game and inspired by Jorge Luis Borges, Aleph is a travelogue of experience, a dreamer's journey through the lives, experiences, stories and musings of protagonists spanning ten countries and five continents.

6.3

Intimate Enemies

Oct 3, 2007

A drama following a French platoon during Algeria's war of independence.

5.5

Moudjahidate

Nov 3, 2008

No overview available.

10.0

François Mitterrand et la guerre d'Algérie

Nov 1, 2010

No overview available.

7.0

143 Sahara Street

Jun 16, 2021

Alone in a small white house on the edge of national road 1, the Trans-Saharan road, which connects Algiers to Tamanrasset crossing the immensity of the desert, Malika, 74, one day opened her door to the director Hassen Ferhani, who came there to scout with his friend Chawki Amari, journalist at El Watan and author of the story Nationale 1 which relates his journey on this north-south axis of more than 2000 km. The Malika of Amari's novel, which Ferhani admits to having first perceived as a "literary fantasy", suddenly takes on an unsuspected human depth in this environment naturally hostile to man. She lends herself to the film project as she welcomes her clients, with an economy of gestures and words, an impression reinforced by the mystery that surrounds her and the rare elements of her biography which suggest that she is not from the region, that she left the fertile north of Algeria to settle in the desert where she lives with a dog and a cat.

6.4

Fanon

Dec 3, 2024

Frantz Fanon, a French psychiatrist from Martinique, has just been appointed head of department at the psychiatric hospital in Blida, Algeria. His methods contrast with those of the other doctors in a context of colonization. A biopic in the heart of the Algerian war where a fight is waged in the name of Humanity.

7.3

Dark Night, October 17, 1961

Jun 7, 2005

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.

7.9

The Battle of Algiers

Sep 8, 1966

Tracing the struggle of the Algerian Front de Liberation Nationale to gain freedom from French colonial rule as seen through the eyes of Ali from his start as a petty thief to his rise to prominence in the organisation and capture by the French in 1957. The film traces the rebels' struggle and the increasingly extreme measures taken by the French government to quell the revolt.

10.0

Raï Story: From Cheikha Rimitti to Cheba Djenet

Dec 1, 2004

Raï Story is a musical journey in search of the Raï legend, Cheikha Remitti, in Oran, Algeria, where the Raï musical tradition began. In 1923, the first Raï singers performed behind screens during ceremonies to protect their identity. It was only when the music of singer Cheikha Remitti began to gain popularity among the general public that Raï music was made public, in the 1940s. Cheikha Remitti, who lives between Paris and Oran, is nowhere to be found, the filmmakers then decide to meet producers, musicians, singers like Cheba Dalila or Cheba Djenet, for whom Remitti created a wake. The opportunity, through these unique stories, illustrated with archive images, to retrace the important place of women in this musical tradition and the transformation of Raï music from the 1960s to 2000.

10.0

Mouloud Feraoun

Jan 1, 2009

Docufiction about Mouloud Feraoun, an author who upholds the great values of the Universal Man. It is in the name of man that Feraoun stands up against injustice. It is in the name of man that he is tormented by war. Feraoun is a solitary creator who suffers to the point of wishing for liberating madness. It is through his work that the portrait of a humble and discreet author, a talented writer and convictions emerges. Most of the time, I let him talk about himself in simple and fair words. I compile his moments of hope, worry, dreams and fears. During all my research, a generous and good Mouloud Feraoun stood out to me who did not hesitate to expose an inhuman and shameful colonial system. His clear and straightforward voice echoes the cry of a people from whom he has never separated.

7.0

Jamila, the Algerian

Dec 9, 1958

Djamila, a young Algerian woman living with her brother Hadi and her uncle Mustafa in the Casbah district of Algiers under the French occupation of Algeria, sees the full extent of injustice, tyranny and cruelty on his compatriots by French soldiers. Jamila's nationalist spirit will be strengthened when French forces invade her university to arrest her classmate Amina who commits suicide by ingesting poison. Shortly after the prominent Algerian guerrilla leader Youssef takes refuge with her, she realizes that her uncle Mustafa is part of this network of anti-colonial rebel fighters. Her uncle linked her to the National Liberation Front (FLN). A series of events illustrate Jamila's participation in resistance operations against the occupier before she was finally captured and tortured. Finally, despite the efforts of her French lawyer, Jamila is sentenced to death...

7.2

Dawn of the Damned

Jul 5, 1965

This excellent feature-length documentary - the story of the imperialist colonization of Africa - is a film about death. Its most shocking sequences derive from the captured French film archives in Algeria containing - unbelievably - masses of French-shot documentary footage of their tortures, massacres and executions of Algerians. The real death of children, passers-by, resistance fighters, one after the other, becomes unbearable. Rather than be blatant propaganda, the film convinces entirely by its visual evidence, constituting an object lesson for revolutionary cinema.

10.0

Pour Que Ses Jours Fleurissent

Jan 1, 1983

Six o'clock in the morning, the sun rises behind the Djurdjura mountain. With precise gestures, learned since childhood, Ouardia raises the water, crouches down to splash his face with cool water. Soon her baby will be born. Hadjila, the traditional midwife, prepares herself internally to help the mother complete the transition from separation. This film talks about the knowledge surrounding birth that Kabyle women have passed down for centuries; knowledge that European women seek to rediscover in order to reclaim this founding passage of our lives.

10.0

Song of Autumn

Jan 1, 1983

Chants d’Automne (Song of Autumn), is a story of daily life on a colonial farm, at the start of the war of liberation in Algeria, describing individual and group behavior in this context. An unthinkable, even dangerous, romantic relationship, born in this context between Catherine, daughter of a settler, and Abdelmalek, son of a blacksmith. Managing his vast property in a feudal manner, Monsieur Marcel whose only ambition is his personal enrichment to the detriment of the community. Everyone fears his authority except his daughter Catherine, a student in France, who returns home during the holidays. She does not stop herself from expressing to him her ideas of justice which go against family and colonial practices. Catherine and Abdelmalek's romance makes relationships increasingly strained, but the call for freedom will be stronger than a woman's love.

6.0

The Panafrican Festival in Algiers

Jan 1, 1969

Festival panafricain d'Alger is a documentary by William Klein of the music and dance festival held 40 years ago in the streets and in venues all across Algiers. Klein follows the preparations, the rehearsals, the concerts… He blends images of interviews made to writers and advocates of the freedom movements with stock images, thus allowing him to touch on such matters as colonialism, neocolonialism, colonial exploitation, the struggles and battles of the revolutionary movements for Independence.

6.0

Glimpses of Morocco and Algiers

Aug 4, 1951

This FitzPatrick Traveltalk short visits the cities of Casablanca, Rabat, and Marrakesh in Morocco, as well as the city of Algiers in Algeria.

5.5

Amour de vivre

May 1, 2010

An account of the brief life of the writer Albert Camus (1913-1960), a Frenchman born in Algeria: his Spanish origin on the isle of Menorca, his childhood in Algiers, his literary career and his constant struggle against the pomposity of French bourgeois intellectuals, his communist commitment, his love for Spain and his opposition to the independence of Algeria, since it would cause the loss of his true home, his definitive estrangement.

8.0

De Gaulle, the Last King of France

Mar 27, 2017

Charles de Gaulle, the first president (1958-1969) of the Vth Republic, France’s current system of government, left his mark on the country . He was statesman of action and has been compared to a monarch. This film depicts the general’s personality through the great events of his presidential term, at a time when the world was undergoing considerable changes.

They Joined the Front

Overview

Genres

Production Companies

They Joined the Front Trailers