The Battle of Algiers, by Gillo Pontecorvo
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Date
- 19:00 / Cancelled 19:00 / Sold out Saturday, 19:00
Location
Studio Centro de Arte Moderna GulbenkianPricing
10% – Cartão Gulbenkian and Cartão Gulbenkian Mais
Entitled ‘Echoes of Anticolonial Struggles’, this screening presents the renowned film ‘The Battle of Algiers’ (1966), by Gillo Pontecorvo, winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival in 1966.
Shot on location in the streets of Algiers, with a cast composed mostly of non-professional actors, the film portrays the resistance of the Algerian people against the French occupying forces during the Algerian War.
The work, which was banned in France for five years and only premiered in Portugal in 1983, saw several sequences cut in different countries, namely those depicting the torture inflicted by French troops on the Algerian population. These scenes, showing bodies in pain—yet also bodies in resistance—stand as testimony to the filmmaker’s ability to create representations imbued with both ethical and aesthetic concerns.
‘The Battle of Algiers’, by Gillo Pontecorvo
Italy, Algeria, 1966, 16mm transferred to digital format, 120’
Documentary
In Italian, with Portuguese and English subtitles
M/12
Shot in the style of black and white reportage in several districts of the capital Algiers, on the very spot where the events took place a few years earlier, this film has left its mark on generations of viewers. Because of its rigorous approach to the urban aspect of the Algerian War of Independence, the film has been of interest to revolutionary activists and counter-insurgency campaigners, and has won the admiration of post-colonial thinkers such as Edward Said, and filmmakers such as Sam Peckinpah and Malek Bensmaïl.
Songs, images, dances and sounds: acts for liberation
In dialogue with the exhibition ‘Zineb Sedira. Standing Here Wondering Which Way to Go’, this programme brings together a constellation of anti-colonial and anti-racist films, dealing with cultural and political resistance, and the inventiveness of the freedom fights. More info
Biographies
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Olivier Hadouchi
Olivier Hadouchi (Paris, 1972) is an independent film curator and researcher based in Paris. He studied Literature (Sorbonne) and Cinema (PhD, Sorbonne Nouvelle). He has published texts in academic journals such as ‘Third Text’ (on William Klein’s ‘The Pan-African Festival of Algiers’) and ‘CinémAction’ (on Latin American militant cinema or on certain Algerian and Lebanese films). He has curated film and video programmes for several venues, including film festivals (CorsicaDoc); Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid (‘Tricontinental – Cinema, Utopia and Internationalism’, 2017); Jeu de Paume, Paris (‘Echoes of Algeria: Resistances’, in dialogue with the exhibition by Zineb Sedira, 2019); Galeria Zé dos Bois, Lisbon; and Münster (in the context of an exhibition by Katia Kameli).
Image credit: © Cyril Caine
Programme
19:00 / Introduction
19:05 / ‘The Battle of Algiers’ (1966), by Gillo Pontecorvo
21:10 / Closing
Credits
Original Title
La battaglia di Algeri
Director
Gillo Pontecorvo
Screenplay
Gillo Pontecorvo
Franco Solinas
Cinematography
Marcello Gatti
Art Direction
Sérgio Canevari
Music
Ennio Morricone
Gillo Pontecorvo
Sound
Omar Bouksani
Alberto Bartolomei
Editing
Mário Morra
Mário Serandrei
Cast
Brahim Haggiag, Jean Martin, Saadi Yacef, Samia Kerbash, Ugo Paletti, Fusia El Kader e Mohamed Ben Kassen
Support
The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation reserves the right to collect and keep records of images, sounds and voice for the diffusion and preservation of the memory of its cultural and artistic activity. For further information, please contact us through the Information Request form.
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