Directed by Philip Brooks and Alan Hayling
On the evening of October 17, 1961 about 30,000 Algerians, ostensibly French citizens, descended upon the boulevards of central Paris to protest an 8:30 curfew, imposed by the French authorities in response to repeated terrorist attacks by Algerian nationalists in Paris and other French cities.
At that time France, led President Charles de Gaulle, was in trouble. The war in Algeria, marked by bloody atrocities committed by all sides, had been grinding on for nearly seven years. The country was constantly disrupted by strikes and protests by farmers and workers, as well as by terrorist acts by the Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN - representing the Algerian nationalist independence movement), and the Organisation Armee Secrete (OAS - a group of disaffected soldiers, politicians and others committed to keeping Algeria French).
Terrorism had claimed the lives of dozens of policemen, provoking what Interior Minister Roger Frey called the "just anger" of the police. Thus, on October 17, Algerian demonstrators were met by a massive police force. Demonstrators were beaten, shot, even drowned in the Seine. Thousands were rounded up and taken to detention centers around the city, where there were more beatings and killings. Although no one seems to know for sure how many Algerians died that day, their number is estimated around 200.
DROWNING BY BULLETS exposes the massacre and the cover-up of what was undoubtedly one of the darkest nights in the history of France. Policemen, demonstrators, former officials, and journalists who witnessed the events speak on camera for the first time. These harrowing personal accounts are juxtaposed with clips from the French press, which supported the official lie that only a few people had died in the demonstration. Footage taken from state-owned French television shows how images of police brutality were replaced by those of Algerians being shipped out of France after the demonstration.
DROWNING BY BULLETS reveals a story that quickly died, suppressed by the French government and a complicit press, and then drowned by the events that later shocked Europe.
Reviews
~ "Extraordinary¡ This moving film provoked animated discussion among the audience and was the highlight of our [French Colonial History Society] meeting. The film illuminated for us an event, a time, and a mentality about which we had heretofore known too little. In light of both the historical memory it creates and what is going on right now in the United States, we hope the film will have the broad distribution that it so richly deserves." - Robert S. DuPlessis, President of the French Colonial History Society
~ "Extremely powerful¡ Compelling¡ could not be more timely. This important documentary [is an] exposition of many horrific events associated with the Algerian War that had been excised from the official memory [and] the suppression of memory and thus of accountability, drowned out by decades by the French state, a complicit press, and a more or less indifferent public. The fundamental question that the film raises is how could this happen in the middle of a huge city, in a democratic nation? The questions it raises represent serious dilemmas for America today. I intend to show this film to all of my classes." - Professor Julia Clancy-Smith, University of Arizona, for the Middle East Studies Association Bulletin
~ "A chilling documentary, especially in view of the growing influence of the extreme Right in modern France." - Daily Mail
Awards
~ 1993 Amnesty International Award
~ Best Documentary, 1993 San Francisco Film Festival
~ Best Documentary, 1993 Angers Film Festival
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