Cinema
So Young a Peace
Une si jeune paix
Jacques Charby · 1965
Synopsis
In the aftermath of Algerian independence, two groups of children, sons of fighters who fell during the war, are taken in by children's homes. Freed from the conflict, they nevertheless go on playing at it. A football match between the two homes goes wrong: refusing the result, the boys split into two camps that replay the war between the independence fighters and the supporters of French Algeria, and show how deeply the violence they suffered remains rooted in them.
Context
Shot in 1964 and released in 1965, the film is regarded as the first fiction feature of independent Algeria. Produced by the Centre national du cinéma algérien, it casts young orphans and children maimed by the war, among them Mustapha, the director's adopted son, tortured at the age of eight by French paratroopers, whose story inspired the screenplay. The cinematography is by André Dumaitre, the music by El Hadj M'hamed El Anka and Pierre Jansen. Selected at Cannes in 1965, the film runs ninety minutes.
Who it is for
For a sober and harsh film about wounded childhood, shot with children who had themselves lived through the war.
Prizes and reception
Awarded a prize at the Moscow festival in 1965, it was shown again in Paris in 2012 and in Oran in 2013.