“Forgetting is complicit in recidivism,” says the commentary of this film dedicated to the demonstration of October 17, 1961 in Paris and the savage repression that followed. 11,538 Algerians will be arrested, which is reminiscent of the great Vel d’hiv roundup of July 16 and 17, 1942 where 12,884 Jews were arrested. The film brings together eyewitnesses including a priest, a peacekeeper, a couple of workers sympathetic to the Algerian cause, a lawyer, Paris municipal councilors including Claude Bourdet (then one of the leaders of the PSU and journalist to France Observateur), Gérard Monatte, the future police union leader, and the editor and writer François Maspero.
The Silence of the River (1991) is currently not available on any services.
Medhi Lallaoui, Agnès Denis
Mémoires Vives productions
True Chronicles of the Blida Joinville Psychiatric Hospital in the Last Century, when Dr Frantz Fanon Was Head of the Fifth Ward between 1953 and 1956
