René Vautier

Directing

René Vautier

Born — Died

1928-01-15 — 2015-01-04

Place of birth

Camaret-sur-Mer

Known for

Directing

Credits

65 titles

René Vautier, born January 15, 1928 in Camaret-sur-Mer (Finistère) and died January 4, 2015 in Cancale (Ille-et-Vilaine), is a French director and screenwriter, communist and anticolonialist, particularly known for his film Have twenty years in the Aurès. Born to a factory worker father and a teacher mother, René Vautier carried out his first militant activity within the Resistance in Brittany in 1943, when he was fifteen years old, which earned him several decorations. He was decorated with the Croix de Guerre at the age of sixteen, responsible for the “youth” group of the René Madec clan, cited in the Order of the Nation by General Charles de Gaulle for acts of Resistance (1944). René Vau…

Known for

To Be Twenty in the Aures poster
7.6

A group of refractory and pacifist Bretons is sent to Algeria. These beings confronted with the horrors of war gradually become killing machines. One of them did not accept it and deserted, taking with him an FLN prisoner who was to be executed the next day.

To Be Twenty in the Aures

1972

No artwork available
NR

The “Journal Annales” consists of almost 2.000 hours of video footage collected by filmmaker Lionel Soukaz since 1991. For “Carottage”, the idea was to take a random sample from this vast volume, like a geological core sample. The result is a condensed history of political struggles and radical cultural experimentation spanning two decades.

Carottage

2013

Antoine Bonfanti, sonic traces of an engaged listening poster
NR

A documentary on the professional and personal affordances of the influential sound engineer Antoine Bonfanti.

Antoine Bonfanti, sonic traces of an engaged listening

2002

Commune présence poster
9.0

Guided by a letter from an childhood friend, a young man visits places and people from the past marked by history and commitment. He then meets other people throughout the night, looking for ways to act and imagine collectively.

Commune présence

2008

Lumières poster
10.0

Long quest for a director specializing in commissioned films, who after a depression rediscovers his loved ones, his Casbah district, himself. Taken in hand, for a while, by his Islamist neighbor, it is above all the meeting with an old projectionist giving him a censored history of cinema and Algeria, which helps him to change, and to accept his own fantasies, embodied by Marilyn Monroe and the Andalusian.

Lumières

1989

Les Ajoncs poster
8.5

An unemployed Algerian worker leaves Paris by hitchhiking. He soon found himself in Brittany and, seduced by the beauty of wild gorse, eventually established himself as a gorse merchant. But for problems with parking his little cart, he had a rough explanation with a law enforcement officer. The happy intervention of factory workers, the eager kindness they showed him, saved him from despair. This film is part of a trilogy "Them And Us" with the films "Les 3 Cousins" and "Techniquement Si Simple".

Les Ajoncs

1970

Film credits

2010s · 3 titles

No artwork available
NR

The “Journal Annales” consists of almost 2.000 hours of video footage collected by filmmaker Lionel Soukaz since 1991. For “Carottage”, the idea was to take a random sample from this vast volume, like a geological core sample. The result is a condensed history of political struggles and radical cultural experimentation spanning two decades.

Carottage

2013

Une certaine histoire du cinéma expérimental français poster
NR

Founded in the second half of the 1990s, the experimental film association L'Etna witnessed the transition from film to digital cinema. Its premises, located in the heart of Paris, were unable to withstand gentrification.

Une certaine histoire du cinéma expérimental français

2019

Histoires d’images, images d’Histoire poster
6.0

In 1950, in full reconstruction, the workers of Brest went on strike. It will last more than a month and will be bloody. Edouard Mazé, a 26-year-old worker from Brest, will die during the demonstration on April 17, dozens of his comrades will be injured and one of them, Pierre Cauzien, will be amputated five days later. The city is under siege. René Vautier, a 20-year-old filmmaker, goes clandestinely to Brest, at the call of the CGT, to shoot a film on the reasons for anger. The trace of these events is now tenuous and carried by witnesses whose words are gradually dying out. This film proposes to find the traces of these events, to collect the words of the witnesses, to search their personal archives, to exhume the forgotten photograms, to open the official files hitherto protected, to delve into the depths of individual memories to understand. In 1950, a man died... But who still remembers?

Histoires d’images, images d’Histoire

2014

2000s · 8 titles

Antoine Bonfanti, sonic traces of an engaged listening poster
NR

A documentary on the professional and personal affordances of the influential sound engineer Antoine Bonfanti.

Antoine Bonfanti, sonic traces of an engaged listening

2002

Commune présence poster
9.0

Guided by a letter from an childhood friend, a young man visits places and people from the past marked by history and commitment. He then meets other people throughout the night, looking for ways to act and imagine collectively.

Commune présence

2008

Mohamed Chouikh, Algérie mon Amour poster
10.0

This portrait from the "Algerian Filmmakers" collection, created by Linda Tahir-Meriau, focuses on Mohamed Chouikh, born in 1943 in Mostaganem, an Algerian actor and director. In 1965, he starred in one of the first major Algerian films, "L'Aube des Damnés" (The Dawn of the Damned) by René Vautier and Ahmed Rachedi. In 1966, he appeared in "Le Vent des Aurès" (The Wind of the Aurès) by Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina. The film won the Best First Feature Award at Cannes. Until 1970, Mohamed Chouikh devoted himself primarily to his acting career in theater and film. It was Michel Drach's film, "Elise Ou La Vraie Vie" (Elise, or Real Life), based on the novel by Claire Etcherelli, that brought him to the attention of French audiences. In the 1970s, he became a director for Algerian television. In 1989, he directed "The Citadel", which was selected for more than 70 international festivals and won around twenty awards.

Mohamed Chouikh, Algérie mon Amour

2008

René Vautier, le rebelle poster
10.0

No synopsis available yet.

René Vautier, le rebelle

2000

The Law of Silence poster
9.0

The Law of Silence, a final-year documentary by Moïra Chappedelaine-Vautier at Femis, examines the 1963 Amnesty Law and the consequences it had on studies of the Algerian War. It brings together interviews conducted in 2002 with Henri Alleg, editor of the daily newspaper Alger Républicain from 1951 to 1955, and Pierre Vidal-Naquet, historian and essayist. It also features incredible statements from General Massu and lawyers unraveling the various legal defenses of people like Jean-Marie Le Pen. Not only does Moïra have her father, René Vautier, speak, but she also includes footage he himself filmed forty years earlier. A very interesting report, which notably reminds us that the Amnesty is not a pardon but the erasure of the sentence and also of the crime itself.

The Law of Silence

2003

René Vautier, le maquisard à la caméra poster
10.0

No synopsis available yet.

René Vautier, le maquisard à la caméra

2000

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Remise du Collier de l'Hermine à René Vautier

2000

Algérie Tours Détours poster
10.0

A documentary road movie with René Vautier In the aftermath of Algeria's independence, René Vautier, a militant filmmaker, considered "the dad" of Algerian cinema, set up the cine-pops. We recreate with him the device of itinerant projections and we travel the country in ciné-bus (Algiers, Béjaïa, Tizi Ouzou, Tébessa) to hear the voices of the spectators on the political situation, youth and living conditions of men and Of women today.

Algérie Tours Détours

2007

1980s · 3 titles

1970s · 4 titles

Behind the camera

To Be Twenty in the Aures poster
7.6

A group of refractory and pacifist Bretons is sent to Algeria. These beings confronted with the horrors of war gradually become killing machines. One of them did not accept it and deserted, taking with him an FLN prisoner who was to be executed the next day.

To Be Twenty in the Aures

1972

To Be Twenty in the Aures poster
7.6

A group of refractory and pacifist Bretons is sent to Algeria. These beings confronted with the horrors of war gradually become killing machines. One of them did not accept it and deserted, taking with him an FLN prisoner who was to be executed the next day.

To Be Twenty in the Aures

1972

Les Ajoncs poster
8.5

An unemployed Algerian worker leaves Paris by hitchhiking. He soon found himself in Brittany and, seduced by the beauty of wild gorse, eventually established himself as a gorse merchant. But for problems with parking his little cart, he had a rough explanation with a law enforcement officer. The happy intervention of factory workers, the eager kindness they showed him, saved him from despair. This film is part of a trilogy "Them And Us" with the films "Les 3 Cousins" and "Techniquement Si Simple".

Les Ajoncs

1970

Les Ajoncs poster
8.5

An unemployed Algerian worker leaves Paris by hitchhiking. He soon found himself in Brittany and, seduced by the beauty of wild gorse, eventually established himself as a gorse merchant. But for problems with parking his little cart, he had a rough explanation with a law enforcement officer. The happy intervention of factory workers, the eager kindness they showed him, saved him from despair. This film is part of a trilogy "Them And Us" with the films "Les 3 Cousins" and "Techniquement Si Simple".

Les Ajoncs

1970

Les Anneaux d'Or poster
7.5

At the time of Tunisian independence, owners of large boats decide to sell, while many small fishermen soon find themselves without work. Their wives then decide to pool their gold rings to sell them and thus buy boats.

Les Anneaux d'Or

1956

Le Remords poster
9.0

A filmmaker witnesses an act of racist police violence in Paris. He discusses with a friend whether and how he should make a film out of this.

Le Remords

1974

The Madwoman of Toujane poster
8.7

This rambling political melodrama tells the story of a French Breton who learns about colonialism while teaching native students in France's colonies of Tunisia and Algeria and returns to his native Brittany to see that the same conditions prevail there.

The Madwoman of Toujane

1974

Four Days of a Partisan poster
10.0

2039... A third world war on every continent... Isolated in an old building with his partner, a young man refuses to seek shelter during an alert. He rejects all historical awareness. But tragic circumstances will decide otherwise. Day One: BEYOND THE WIND. Day Two: VERTICAL COMBAT. Day Three: HORIZONTAL COMBAT. 2045. Day Four: BEYOND THE WIND.

Four Days of a Partisan

1975

Quand tu disais, Valéry poster
9.5

Divided into five parts, this film traces the long strike by workers at the Caravelair caravan factory in Trigniac, near Saint-Nazaire, led by the C.G.T. and C.F.D.T. unions. Shot in 1975, the film achieved the strange feat of being produced entirely by workers' producers - 15,000 of them paid in advance for their tickets - and of being amortized, and even made profitable, by being shown outside the commercial circuit alone.

Quand tu disais, Valéry

1976

Afrique 50 poster
6.8

The first French anti-colonialist film, derived from an assignment in which the director was to document educational activities by the French League of Schooling in West Africa. Vautier later filmed what he actually saw: “a lack of teachers and doctors, the crimes committed by the French Army in the name of France, the instrumentalization of the colonized peoples.” For his role in the film, Vautier was imprisoned for several months. The film was banned from public screening for more than 40 years.

Afrique 50

1950

Afrique 50 poster
6.8

The first French anti-colonialist film, derived from an assignment in which the director was to document educational activities by the French League of Schooling in West Africa. Vautier later filmed what he actually saw: “a lack of teachers and doctors, the crimes committed by the French Army in the name of France, the instrumentalization of the colonized peoples.” For his role in the film, Vautier was imprisoned for several months. The film was banned from public screening for more than 40 years.

Afrique 50

1950

Afrique 50 poster
6.8

The first French anti-colonialist film, derived from an assignment in which the director was to document educational activities by the French League of Schooling in West Africa. Vautier later filmed what he actually saw: “a lack of teachers and doctors, the crimes committed by the French Army in the name of France, the instrumentalization of the colonized peoples.” For his role in the film, Vautier was imprisoned for several months. The film was banned from public screening for more than 40 years.

Afrique 50

1950

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Mission Pacifique

1988

A Human Condition poster
5.8

Louis Malle’s meditative investigation of the inner workings of a French automotive plant.

A Human Condition

1974

Dawn of the Damned poster
7.4

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

1965

Fort Du Conquet Destruction of the Vautier Archives poster
10.0

Resistance fighter under the occupation, committed to the FLN during the Algerian war, member of the Medvedkine group after May 1968 and defender of Breton autonomy, René Vautier was a committed filmmaker, author of an anti-colonialist work in which he denounces the repression, torture and racism. In 1983, René Vautier discovered, by the light of a flashlight, his films cut up and scattered at Fort du Conquet. Police also came to check the damage.

Fort Du Conquet Destruction of the Vautier Archives

1983

Fort Du Conquet Destruction of the Vautier Archives poster
10.0

Resistance fighter under the occupation, committed to the FLN during the Algerian war, member of the Medvedkine group after May 1968 and defender of Breton autonomy, René Vautier was a committed filmmaker, author of an anti-colonialist work in which he denounces the repression, torture and racism. In 1983, René Vautier discovered, by the light of a flashlight, his films cut up and scattered at Fort du Conquet. Police also came to check the damage.

Fort Du Conquet Destruction of the Vautier Archives

1983

A People on the March poster
6.5

Collectively directed by the members of the Centre audiovisuel d'Alger at Ben Aknoun, the film traces, in two parts, Algeria's recent history, from colonial repression to the birth of the National Liberation Army, and the country's postwar reconstruction, framed in sympathy with the socialist project of Ahmed Ben Bella's government. Released in 1964, the film was banned and sealed after Houari Boumediene's June 1965 coup, precisely because of its favorable treatment of Ben Bella.

A People on the March

1963

Les Trois Cousins poster
8.0

The Three Cousins ​​is a comedy-drama by René Vautier released in 1970 about the living conditions of three Algerian immigrant cousins ​​looking for work in Paris. Housed in a narrow construction shed, the coal stove will cause them to suffocate. The Three Cousins ​​won the Best Human Rights Film Award in Strasbourg in 1970.

Les Trois Cousins

1970

Les Trois Cousins poster
8.0

The Three Cousins ​​is a comedy-drama by René Vautier released in 1970 about the living conditions of three Algerian immigrant cousins ​​looking for work in Paris. Housed in a narrow construction shed, the coal stove will cause them to suffocate. The Three Cousins ​​won the Best Human Rights Film Award in Strasbourg in 1970.

Les Trois Cousins

1970

Déjà le sang de mai ensemençait novembre poster
9.0

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.

Déjà le sang de mai ensemençait novembre

1982

Quand les femmes ont pris la colère poster
8.0

The action takes place in a metallurgical factory which was part of the Pechiney-Ugine-Külhman trust in Couëron, Loire-Atlantique, in 1975. To show their solidarity with their husbands on strike, workers' wives invaded the director's office and obtained in two hours what was refused to them for months. But the management complained and sued. Twelve wives were charged with forcible confinement. The mobilization then widened. The women called on the Bretagne Cinema Production Unit (UPCB) to make a film about their struggle. Narrating the courageous action of solidarity of women with the strikers of the factory and the emergence of a collective awareness, both feminist and working-class, the film is also an echo chamber sensitive to the aspirations of the twelve women who were charged.

Quand les femmes ont pris la colère

1977

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Le Scorpion de Saint-Nazaire

1980

J'ai Huit Ans poster
9.0

With my wife, Olga Poliakoff, we made "I'm Eight Years Old" based on an idea by René Vautier. Using drawings by Algerian children who were refugees in Tunisia, the film immerses the viewer in the traumatized world of these children, horrifically linking the word "France" with words like "kill," "burn," and "torture." The live-action footage was shot in Tunisia by René Vautier and myself. A second set of drawings was compiled, and the children's testimonies were recorded by Olga at the Algerian-Tunisian border. The entire film was edited in collaboration with Jacqueline Meppiel. The first screening took place in Paris on February 10, 1962, without any precautions or authorization, for about fifty people. Sponsored by the Maurice Audin Committee, the film then circulated clandestinely throughout France in dozens of copies and was seen by tens of thousands of people while the OAS was carrying out bombings in Paris and Algiers – Yann Le Masson

J'ai Huit Ans

1962

No artwork available
5.0

No synopsis available yet.

La Caravelle

1972

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Carte blanche à Gilles Servat

1977

The Death Knell poster
10.0

At the beginning of the 1960s, in Salisbury (now Harare), in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), the government of Ian Smith hanged three black revolutionaries who had nevertheless been pardoned by the Queen of England. René Vautier, with ZAPU (Zimbabwe African Party for Unity), denounces this killing. Expelled by the Rhodesian police (informed by the French secret services), the filmmaker shoots a film in Algeria in the form of an indictment against colonial savagery. The film was first banned in France, then authorized in 1965.

The Death Knell

1964

The Death Knell poster
10.0

At the beginning of the 1960s, in Salisbury (now Harare), in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), the government of Ian Smith hanged three black revolutionaries who had nevertheless been pardoned by the Queen of England. René Vautier, with ZAPU (Zimbabwe African Party for Unity), denounces this killing. Expelled by the Rhodesian police (informed by the French secret services), the filmmaker shoots a film in Algeria in the form of an indictment against colonial savagery. The film was first banned in France, then authorized in 1965.

The Death Knell

1964

The Death Knell poster
10.0

At the beginning of the 1960s, in Salisbury (now Harare), in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), the government of Ian Smith hanged three black revolutionaries who had nevertheless been pardoned by the Queen of England. René Vautier, with ZAPU (Zimbabwe African Party for Unity), denounces this killing. Expelled by the Rhodesian police (informed by the French secret services), the filmmaker shoots a film in Algeria in the form of an indictment against colonial savagery. The film was first banned in France, then authorized in 1965.

The Death Knell

1964

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Hirochirac 1995

1995

Histoires d’images, images d’Histoire poster
6.0

In 1950, in full reconstruction, the workers of Brest went on strike. It will last more than a month and will be bloody. Edouard Mazé, a 26-year-old worker from Brest, will die during the demonstration on April 17, dozens of his comrades will be injured and one of them, Pierre Cauzien, will be amputated five days later. The city is under siege. René Vautier, a 20-year-old filmmaker, goes clandestinely to Brest, at the call of the CGT, to shoot a film on the reasons for anger. The trace of these events is now tenuous and carried by witnesses whose words are gradually dying out. This film proposes to find the traces of these events, to collect the words of the witnesses, to search their personal archives, to exhume the forgotten photograms, to open the official files hitherto protected, to delve into the depths of individual memories to understand. In 1950, a man died... But who still remembers?

Histoires d’images, images d’Histoire

2014

Marée noire, colère rouge poster
7.0

March 16, 1978. The Amoco-Cadiz supertanker tanker sank off Portsall, a small port in northern Finistère. This film sets out to demonstrate the misleading information campaign that followed the accident as well as its disastrous ecological consequences. René Vautier denounces the ridiculous measures then taken by the governments, the financial interests, the traffic of oil tankers and those of the tugs and the role of the media complicit in this policy. Faced with this, the anger of the Breton people and local elected officials who were never consulted.

Marée noire, colère rouge

1978

No artwork available
NR

Video film on the relationship between immigrant workers and the French working class, shown in working-class and student circles.

Ensemble, vivre et travailler

1986

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Entretien avec Pierre Clément

1998

No artwork available
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Tournevache

1985

Algeria in Flames poster
8.5

These are the first images shot in the ALN maquis, camera in hand, at the end of 1956 and in 1957. These war images taken in the Aurès-Nementchas are intended to be the basis of a dialogue between French and Algerians for peace in Algeria, by demonstrating the existence of an armed organization close to the people. Three versions of Algeria in Flames are produced: French, German and Arabic. From the end of the editing, the film circulates without any cuts throughout the world, except in France where the first screening takes place in the occupied Sorbonne in 1968. Certain images of the film have circulated and are found in films, in particular Algerian films. Because of the excitement caused by this film, he was forced to go into hiding for 25 months. After the declaration of independence, he founded the first Algerian Audiovisual Center.

Algeria in Flames

1958

Algeria in Flames poster
8.5

These are the first images shot in the ALN maquis, camera in hand, at the end of 1956 and in 1957. These war images taken in the Aurès-Nementchas are intended to be the basis of a dialogue between French and Algerians for peace in Algeria, by demonstrating the existence of an armed organization close to the people. Three versions of Algeria in Flames are produced: French, German and Arabic. From the end of the editing, the film circulates without any cuts throughout the world, except in France where the first screening takes place in the occupied Sorbonne in 1968. Certain images of the film have circulated and are found in films, in particular Algerian films. Because of the excitement caused by this film, he was forced to go into hiding for 25 months. After the declaration of independence, he founded the first Algerian Audiovisual Center.

Algeria in Flames

1958

À Propos De... L'autre Détail poster
9.0

Documentary edited from testimonies on the torture of people who experienced the war. Some witnesses were tortured by Jean-Marie Le Pen. These testimonies will help defend the newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné in court against Jean-Marie Le Pen for defamation. The film was shown in 1985 during the trial and some witnesses also came to support the newspaper. But the 1963 amnesty law protects the politician, prohibiting the use of images that could harm people who served during the Algerian war.

À Propos De... L'autre Détail

1985

À Propos De... L'autre Détail poster
9.0

Documentary edited from testimonies on the torture of people who experienced the war. Some witnesses were tortured by Jean-Marie Le Pen. These testimonies will help defend the newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné in court against Jean-Marie Le Pen for defamation. The film was shown in 1985 during the trial and some witnesses also came to support the newspaper. But the 1963 amnesty law protects the politician, prohibiting the use of images that could harm people who served during the Algerian war.

À Propos De... L'autre Détail

1985

À Propos De... L'autre Détail poster
9.0

Documentary edited from testimonies on the torture of people who experienced the war. Some witnesses were tortured by Jean-Marie Le Pen. These testimonies will help defend the newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné in court against Jean-Marie Le Pen for defamation. The film was shown in 1985 during the trial and some witnesses also came to support the newspaper. But the 1963 amnesty law protects the politician, prohibiting the use of images that could harm people who served during the Algerian war.

À Propos De... L'autre Détail

1985