Outside the Law

Hors la loi (2010)
Director: Rachid Bouchareb
Actors: Jamel Debbouze, Roschdy Zem, Sami Bouajila
Runtime: 138 min

This tale of three Algerian brothers who are living in France in the late 1950s and early 1960s presents an exceptional insight into the Algerian anti-colonial struggle. Critics place this movie somewhere between film noir and western, comparing it to Coppola’s Godfather and Jean-Pierre Melville’s Army of shadows.

Story begins on the 8th of May 1945, while the world was celebrating victory over Nazism, in the Algerian province of Setif conflict arose between the population and the French gendarmerie which resulted in over 40.000 civilian casualties. After the Setif massacre the brothers scatter across the world. Many years later they are reunited in France and get involved in the struggle for independence of Algeria.

Although the main struggle for the liberation of Algeria from French colonialism (1954-1962) was waged in North Africa, many Algerian immigrants took part in anti-colonial organizing and protests, but also in conflicts with French authorities and urban-guerrilla actions across France.

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