Fidaï
(Fidaï)

Damien Ounouri, a French-Algerian, renews ties with his great-uncle, El Hadi. During the Algerian War of Independence, this easy-going retiree had been a fidaï – a combatant in civil dress. His objective? “Weaken the enemy’s military potential”. He accompanies the young filmmaker to the sites of his undercover actions, including those in France, where as a member of an armed branch of the FLN (National Liberation Front), he was imprisoned and tortured. Ounouri overlaps official history with a personal history that his family had largely kept quiet – but how can one venture onto this “scorched terrain”? Going back and forth between the two countries (the filmmaker’s father, to whom Fidaï is dedicated, settled in Marseille), he creates a dialogue between the two languages: Ounouri asks his questions in French and El Hadi replies in Arabic. Their exchange, bridging the two worlds, serves as an opportunity to revisit France’s unresolved history with Algeria. Charlotte Garson