Dawn of the Damned

This excellent feature-length documentary - the story of the imperialist colonization of Africa - is a film about death. Its most shocking sequences derive from the captured French film archives in Algeria containing - unbelievably - masses of French-shot documentary footage of their tortures, massacres and executions of Algerians. The real death of children, passers-by, resistance fighters, one after the other, becomes unbearable. Rather than be blatant propaganda, the film convinces entirely by its visual evidence, constituting an object lesson for revolutionary cinema.

Director: Ahmed Rachedi

Cast: Mouloud Mammeri, Mohamed Chouikh, René Vautier, Ahmed Rachedi, Mazouz Ould-Abderrahmane, Sid Ahmed Agoumi, Salah Teskouk, Samia Meziane

Audience-only score — full critic data not yet in the ReelXO vault.