Smith Institute for Political Economy and Philosophy

💡“It’s hard to start a revolution. Even harder to continue it. And hardest of all to win it. But, it’s only afterwards, when we have won, that the true difficulties begin.”
🎥 The Battle of Algiers (1966)
🎬 Wednesday, November 4 at 5:30pm in Wilkinson Hall 221

We’ll be screening and discussing “The Battle of Algiers” (1966), a war drama co-written and directed by Gillo Pontecorvo, one of Italy’s leading post-WWII filmmakers. Winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festiva and widely considered one of the most influential political films in history, “The Battle of Algiers” vividly re-creates a key year in the tumultuous Algerian struggle for independence from France in the 1950s. As violence escalates on both sides, children shoot soldiers at point-blank range, Algerian female insurgents plant bombs in cafés, and French soldiers resort to torture to break the will of the revolutionary forces. Shot in black-and-white on the streets of Algiers in a documentary style, relying on mainly non-professional actors, and featuring dialogue in both French and Arabic, this pivotal neo-realist film is a case study in modern urban warfare, with its terrorist attacks and the brutal counter-insurgency techniques used to combat them. Banned from distribution in France by the government, the film remains one of the most controversial war films ever made.

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