bombs are set off and the building housing la Pointe is brought to the ground. La
Pointe and his followers are all killed. This vio lence is followed by two years of
peace in Algiers, until more fighting breaks out in the mountains in winter of 1960.
21 December 1960 marks the final day of demonstrations, and by July 1962, after
two more years of strug gle, the Algerian nation is born.Reception
The Battle of Algiers had its premiere at the Venice Film Festival on 31 August 1966
(where it won the Golden Lion) and its premiere in Algiers on 27 October 1966. It
was first screened in the Unites States on 20 September 1967. The film was ini-
tially banned in France as “incendiary”; it wasn’t shown until October 1970 and
wasn’t screened in Spain until 1978, three years after Francisco Franco’s death. A
restored version was released in Italy in April 1999, and then extended versions
were released in Hong Kong (May 2000) and in the UK (December 2003). The Battle
of Algiers was re- released in the United States on 9 January 2004 and screened at
the Cannes Film Festival, 15 May 2004. For its 50th anniversary, a digitally restored
version was screened at the Venice Film Festival, then at the Toronto and New York
film festivals. There are no accurate rec ords of lifetime box office proceeds, but they
have been modest.Reel History Versus Real History
Historians are in general agreement that The Battle of Algiers is true to history in
the chronology and most of its particulars of the events it depicts. One commenta-
tor, British historian- screenwriter Alex von Tunzelmann, calls the film “a master-
piece of historical accuracy” and notes that the principal characters are all based
on real people (though some are composites). Tunzelmann also observes that the
“film’s inclusion of female and underage militants, while apparently shocking to
many viewers, is accurate. If anything, women like Zohra Drif, Samia Lakhdari,
Djamila Bouhired and Hassiba Ben Bouali played a more significant role than the
film allows them” (von Tunzelmann, 2009). British journalist Martin Evans offers
a dissenting opinion. He begins by pointing out that calling the conflict in Algiers
a “ battle” is a misnomer: “This was not urban warfare on a grand scale like Sta lin-
grad in 1942 or even the Irish Easter uprising of 1916. There was no sustained
street- to- street combat. Rather the confrontation took the form of short bursts of
fighting at close quarters, interspersed with the bombing of civilians on the FLN
side and mass round- ups and torture on the French side.” Although Evans con-
cedes that “much of the film’s narrative follows the facts in a brutally honest man-
ner,” he charges that it “also diverges from the facts” and elides “the role of the
Algerian Communists, who supplied the bomb making expertise to the FLN, or
the rival MNA [Mouvement National Algérien/Algerian People’s Party], still an
impor tant po liti cal force in early 1957. Equally, the bitter divisions within the FLN
are ignored, as in the case of Abbane Ramdane who is absent as an historical fig-
ure. Instead Pontecorvo pres ents the war uniquely in terms of the FLN against the
French paratroopers” (Evans, 2012).22 BATTLE OF ALGIERS, THE [ItALIAn: LA BATTAGLIA DI ALGERI]