Dawn of the Damned

Dawn of the Damned

85 mins | Drama, Documentary, History | Jan. 1, 1965

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.

Dawn of the Damned

85 mins | Drama, Documentary, History | Jan. 1, 1965

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.
Producers Centre national du cinéma algérien (CNC)
Original title L'Aube des Damnés
Directors Ahmed Rachedi
Writers Mouloud Mammeri, Ahmed Rachedi, René Vautier