SPLA : Portal to cultural diversity
Cultures-Haïti

The Silence of the River

  • Le Silence du Fleuve
Genre : Historical
Type : Documentary
Original title :
Principal country concerned : Column : Cinema/tv, History/society
Year of production : 1991
Format : Mid-length
Running time : 52 (in minutes)
https://bed.bzh/fr/films/le-silence-du-fleuve

October 17, 1961, Algerians demonstrate with dignity in Paris, against the curfew imposed by Prefect Papon. A repression falls on them, hundreds of Algerians are killed and beaten. The French police beat, kill, throw the bodies in the Seine. The victims are counted in the hundreds.

Who saw? Who remembers? Witnesses, anonymous, FLN activists, police officers... remember and testify to this violence, and especially this silence, so that oblivion is not swallowed up in history. For us, Agnès, Samia, Mehdi... the whole team that made the film, collected the testimonies of passers-by, FLN sympathizers or police officers, seek to know.

"This story is not old: it is our age. We wanted to unearth traces of it in the archives, in memories, to understand why we had learned it by chance. And what did we fish out in all the nets we cast? A set of silences that we give to listen to."

France / Documentary / 1991 / 52 min / Video / Color / VO Director: Mehdi Lallaoui & Agnès Denis
Image: Patricio Panagua
Editing: Halima Arouali, Lyn Mac Sorley, Jeanine Pasquier
Sound: Philippe Jobet
Music: Edward Morris Auslender
Production: Mémoire Vives Productions, Au Nom de la Mémoire Distribution: Au Nom de la Mémoire (Mehdi Lallaoui)


Partners

  • Gens de la Caraïbe
  • Collectif 2004 Images
  • Caracoli

With the support of