Militant cinema and Images of Algerian War of Independence

Organization and moderator: Maria do Carmo Piçarra (CECS-U. Minho/CFAC-U. Reading)

Date: September 7th, 2017, Thursday, 19h

During the War of Independence of Algeria (1954-1962), various militants’ films were done to promote the idea of Algerian independence or the solidarity with that cause).  The images of the repression and the use of the torture by French army in Algerian villages and cities, or the image of the fighters (showed as a Third World guerrillero/partisan fighters from a real army) of the principal Algerian Movement of independence (the Front of National Liberation), the question of the refugees and the young orphans of war were part of their representations.

Filmmakers from different countries (like USA, ex-Yugoslavia, Italy, Bulgaria…) and even some French (René Vautier, Cécile Decugis, Pierre Clément…) opposed to the colonialism and imperialism of their country were part of that international network.

This way of creating an international network supporting independence was also used after by several movement of liberation from the Third World and the Tricontinental (OSPAAAL Organization of Solidarity with the People of Asia, Africa, America Latina), and Algiers was considered as the « Mecca of the revolutionaries » (according to Amílcal Cabral) in Africa during the sixties and the seventies, supporting the MPLA, FRELIMO, PAIGC, PLO, ANC… and opened his doors to exiled political like Manuel Alegre or Eldridge and Kathleen Cleaver.

Images and films extracts will be shown during the lecture.

Biography

Olivier Hadouchi, film historian (PhD in cinema studies), researcher (associated to IRCAV Paris 3) and film curator, was born and lives in Paris. Published a book about images of solidarity with Algerian independence (published by Museum of Modern Art, Belgrade) in 2016, and texts in various publications (Third Text, La Furia Umana, CinémAction, Something We Africans Got, or catalogues…) and did many lectures, films presentations and discussions in museums, art centers (Tranzit/ Prague, places in Chile…) or film festivals (Paris, Marseille, Lille, Nantes, Algiers, Béjaïa, Lisbon, Beirut, Ghent, Geneva, Bourges). Curated film programs for Le BAL, Bétonsalon and a program « Tricontinental. Cinema, Utopia and Internationalism » (with 13 screenings) for Museum Reina Sofia (Madrid). With Seloua Luste Boulbina, he curates a regular event (film-video programs) every month in La COLONIE (Paris).

Maria do Carmo Piçarra (Communication Sciences PhD, New University of Lisbon) is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Centre of the Communication and Society Research of the University of Minho and the Centre for Film and Aesthetics, University of Reading. Co-editor of Aniki – Portuguese Journal of the Moving Image, she is a journalist, film critic and programmer. She published Azuis-ultramarinos. Propaganda colonial e censura no cinema do Estado Novo (Overseas blues. Colonial propaganda and censorship in the cinema of Estado Novo (2015), Salazar vai ao cinema I, II (Salazar goes to to movies) (2006, 2011), and co-edited, with Jorge António, the trilogy “Angola, o nascimento de uma nação” (Angola, the birth of a nation) (2013, 2014, 2015) and, with Teresa Castro. (Re)Imagining African Independence. Film, Visual Arts and the Fall of the Portuguese Empire (2017).

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