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Battle of Algiers

The Battle of Algiers

La Bataille d’Alger

Gillo Pontecorvo


  • Country: Algeria
  • Year: 1966
  • Language: Italian/French/English/Arabic
  •  
  • Runtime: 121 min.

Gillo Pontecorvo's docudrama recounting of the Algerian National Liberation Front's (FLN) battle against their French colonizers in the 1950s has lost none of its cutting insight into the dynamics of imperialism and terrorism (of both state and non-state varieties).

Cinematheque

screening times

    • Friday October 22
    • 6:30:00 PM
    • Tiff Bell LightBox 3
    • Saturday November 20
    • 2:30:00 PM
    • Tiff Bell LightBox 3

Note: indicates Premium Screening.

official description

Gillo Pontecorvo's docudrama recounting of the Algerian National Liberation Front's (FLN) battle against their French colonizers in the 1950s has lost none of its cutting insight into the dynamics of imperialism and terrorism (of both state and non-state varieties). Shooting in actual locations with a largely non-professional cast—including co-producer Saadi Yacef, one of the FLN's top military leaders, who essentially plays himself—Pontecorvo's gritty, stirring and unabashedly anti-colonialist account of the urban war between battle-hardened French paratroopers and the FLN's grimly determined guerrilla fighters became an instant flashpoint for controversy and was banned in France until 1971. Minutely detailing the tactics of both sides, the film became a veritable handbook for both insurgency and counter-insurgency, studied by everyone from the Black Panthers to the IRA to the Bush White House.

Thanks to Michela Calisse and Paolo Ruggiero, Cinecittà Luce SpA.

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