The Sahara: The Forgotten History of the World's Harshest Desert

At once a vast expanse of mesmerizing desolation and the crucible of human history, the Sahara Desert has been both the battlefield of empires and the haunted wilderness at the margins of the known world for thousands of years. Shot on location, this exhilarating documentary brings to life the Sahara’s cruel history and the conflicts that still plague its people. THE SAHARA recounts the story of kings who once led caravans of 30,000 people across the desert, bearing riches beyond imagination. It tells of Roman death squads that exterminated the citizens of the Empire’s most bitter rival and how the Foreign Legion crafted a legend out of last stands and lost causes. From the fabled metropolis of Timbuktu to the shores of Tripoli, THE SAHARA is an illuminating exploration of this unforgiving and remote land of myth and mirage.

A Propos D'Un Crime

In 1967, Visconti came to Algiers for the filming of The Stranger with Mastroianni and Anna Karina. Camus, during his lifetime, had always refused to allow one of his novels to be brought to the screen. His family made another decision. The filming of the film was experienced in Algiers, like a posthumous return of the writer to Algiers. During filming, a young filmmaker specializing in documentaries Gérard Patris attempts a report on the impact of the filming of The Stranger on the Algerians. Interspersed with sequences from the shooting of Visconti's film, he films Poncet, Maisonseul, Bénisti and Sénac, friends of Camus, in full discussions to situate Camus and his work in a sociological and historical context. “The idea is for us to show people, others, ourselves as if they could all be Meursault, or at least the witnesses concerned to his drama.”

Cracks in the Mask

A century ago the Torres Strait Island were the subjects of the famous Cambridge Anthropological Expedition - the resulting depletion of their cultural artifacts left them with nothing but a history of remembered loss. The only people in the Pacific to make elaborate turtleshell masks have none left - they are all in foreign museums. In a quest to reclaim the past, Ephraim Bani, a wise and knowledgeable Torres Strait Islander, travels with his wife to the great museums of Europe where his heritage lies. The film, an SBS Independent production, shows that the thickest of masks cracks when a descendant of the original owners enters a museum.

La Chine Est Encore Loin

On November 1, 1954, near Ghassira, a small village lost in the Aurès, a couple of French teachers and an Algerian boss were the first civilian victims of a seven-year war which would lead to the independence of Algeria. More than fifty years later, Malek Bensmaïl returns to this Chaoui village, which has become “the cradle of the Algerian revolution”, to film, throughout the seasons, its inhabitants, its school and its children.

Mi Barrios Altos querido

Five stories about dignity in the capital of Peru. A local leader looking for someone to leave the post of her complex work, a tourist guide who is a patron of the architectural heritage and Creole music, an ex-delinquent rescued by the Evangelical Church, a teenage dancer of Afro-Peruvian music forced to emigrate and a muralist of Bellas Artes son of Andean migrants, they try to get ahead in Barrios Altos, the most feared – but also most beloved – historic neighborhood of Lima.

Herod's Lost Tomb

National Geographic follows archaeologist Ehud Natzer in his discovery of the tomb of Herod the Great.

Paroles d'un Prisonnier Français de l'ALN

The image of French prisoners was very often evoked in Algerian cinema and literature, but until today, no Algerian or even European report or documentary had given voice to one of these French prisoners of the war of Algeria. In the interest of truth and writing history, we set out in search of one of these French witnesses. This witness is René Rouby, prisoner of Amirouche's group for more than 114 days in 1958 in the Akfadou region in Kabylia. This is the first testimony from a French prisoner of the ALN (the National Liberation Army).

Gladiators: Back from the Dead

Up to one million gladiators are thought to have died in arenas across the Roman Empire. And, although fascination with gladiators has been high, the details of their lives and deaths remain fragmentary. Now, with the discovery of an ancient Roman burial site containing 80 skeletons thought to be gladiator warriors, National Geographic recreates the world of the Roman arena and how six gladiators lived, fought and died.

La Bataille d'Alger, l'empreinte

Cheikh Djemaï looks back on the genesis of Gillo Pontecorvo’s feature film, The Battle of Algiers (1965). Through archive images, extracts from the film and interviews with personalities, the filmmaker retraces the journey of a major work - from the events of the Algiers Casbah (1956-1957) to the presentation of the Lion of 'Or causing the anger of the French delegation in Venice - which left its mark as much in the history of cinema as in that of Algeria.

The Mystery of Bay Bulls

A film on the "SAPPHIRE", the oldest identified wreck in Canadian waters. Parks Canada's underwater archaeology team is responsible for the excavation of the three-hundred-year-old frigate.

Frantz Fanon, trajectoire d'un révolté

Frantz Fanon alone embodies all the issues of French colonial history. Martinican resistance fighter, he enlisted, like millions of colonial soldiers, in the Free Army out of loyalty to France and the idea of freedom that it embodies for him. A writer, he participated in the bubbling life of Saint-Germain with Césaire, Senghor and Sartre, debating tirelessly on the destiny of colonized peoples. As a doctor, he revolutionized the practice of psychiatry, seeking in the relations of domination of colonial societies the foundations of the pathologies of his patients in Blida. Activist, he brings together through his action and his history of him, the anger of peoples crushed by centuries of colonial oppression. But beyond this exceptional journey which makes sensitive the permanence of French colonialism in the Lesser Antilles at the gates of the Algerian desert, he leaves an incomparable body of work which has made him today one of the most studied French authors across the Atlantic.

Many Beautiful Things

In an age when women were incapable of joining the artistic dialogue, Lilias Trotter managed to win the favour of celebrated critics.

Sons of Haji Omar

Haji Omar and his three sons belong to the Lakankhel, a Pashtoon tribal group in northeastern Afghanistan. The film focuses on his family: Haji Omar, the patriarch; Anwar, the eldest, his father's favorite, a pastoralist and expert horseman; Jannat Gul, cultivator and ambitious rebel; and Ismail, the youngest, attending school with a view to a job as a government official.

Éthiopie, le mystère des mégalithes

Die verschwundene Welt von Honduras

Der Schatz im Wüstensand - Turkmenistans antikes Erbe

To outsiders, Turkmenistan is one of the world's least known countries. For the first time in ten years, a film crew has been free to visit spectacular excavation sites and follow international researchers into areas that have long been off-limits. Once considered the poorest part of the Soviet Union, oil and natural gas have brought new wealth to Turkmenistan today. A little known fact in the West is that 4,000 years ago, the country was home to one of the ancient world's centers of power. Although it flourished around the same time as the advanced civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt, the Margiana empire was later largely forgotten. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the country has been slowly opening up to international researchers, and its astounding cultural heritage is coming to light.

Papua New Guinea: Anthropology on Trial

"Papua New Guinea: Anthropology on Trial" was a 1983 episode of the PBS science documentary series NOVA. It explored the field of anthropology, particularly in the context of Papua New Guinea, from the perspective of the people being studied.

HyperNormalisation

We live in a world where the powerful deceive us. We know they lie. They know we know they lie. They do not care. We say we care, but we do nothing, and nothing ever changes. It is normal. Welcome to the post-truth world. How we got to where we are now…

Homo sapiens, les nouvelles origines

In Morocco, new excavations on the site of Jebel Irhoud upset the generally accepted view of the dating of the appearance of man.

Déjà le sang de mai ensemençait novembre

The essay by René Vautier, "Déjà le sang de Mai ensemençait Novembre", starts with the recapitulation of the representations of Algeria throughout the history of visual arts in France in an effort to explore the causes for the quest for independence.