The SAS (Section Administrative Spécialisée) were created in 1956 by the French army during the Algerian war to pacify "the natives". During the day, the SAS were used as treatment centres and at night as torture centres, in order to crush the Algerian resistance. The SAS were inhabited by French soldiers and auxiliaries (harkis, goumiers) and their families. At independence in 1962, a few families of auxiliaries stayed on; the vacant buildings were occupied by families of martyrs awaiting the better days promised by the new Algeria. 46 years later, the SAS at Laperrine, in the Bouira region, still exists, a unique place inhabited by people who have taken refuge there. They have been joined by farmers fleeing the terrorism of the 90s. They all live as best they can in a place they did not choose, suffering the consequences of war.

“La Zerda and the songs of oblivion” (1982) is one of only two films made by the Algerian novelist A...

Between 1954-1962, one hundred to three hundred young French people refused to participate in the Al...

Cheikh Djemaï looks back on the genesis of Gillo Pontecorvo’s feature film, The Battle of Algiers (1...

The image of French prisoners was very often evoked in Algerian cinema and literature, but until tod...

Albert Camus, who died 60 years ago, continues to inspire defenders of freedom and human rights acti...

In 1967, Visconti came to Algiers for the filming of The Stranger with Mastroianni and Anna Karina. ...

During the Algerian war (1954-1962), some French people helped the F.L.N. in France.

On November 1, 1954, the National Liberation Front of Algeria announced the war for the country's in...

"A country without artists is a dead country... I hope we are alive..." It is in this film by Fawzi ...

Jean Sénac, born in Béni Saf in Algeria in 1926 and died in Algiers in 1973, is today considered one...

By ending the life of Jean Senac on August 30, 1973 in Algiers, his assassins believed they would si...

This excellent feature-length documentary - the story of the imperialist colonization of Africa - is...

In 2024, Abdelkrim Baba Aissa, aged 75, engages in a series of filmed interviews with Algerian journ...

TSR documentary on the 1979 expedition to Algeria in the Atakor massif (Hoggar desert), organized by...

In February 1966, Pierre Mazeaud and Lucien Berardini traveled to the Atakor massif, in the Hoggar m...

Pierre Clément, student and photographer of René Vauthier, first accompanied him to Tunisia to make ...

1962, at the end of the Algerian War, Algerian independence activists are released from Rennes priso...

The Algerian Sahara is the most exceptional deserts. He densifies everything he hosts, men and natur...