In October 2015, the historian Jean-Pierre Bertin-Maghit published his work about amateur films shot by french soldiers during the Algerian War.
Expert in french cinema during Word War II, professor in Paris III University, Jean-Pierre Bertin-Maghit started to work on this subject in the late 2000, by making contact with the INEDITS association. Thanks to the help of many film libraries, and by making appeals in the press and contacting the veterans’ associations, he managed to gather 72 films shot by 38 soldiers between 1954 and 1962.
After a concise and clear speech about his work method, and about the personal history of different filmmakers, the historian analysed what these films allow us to see nowadays and how they built a « counter-history » of the conflict in Algeria.
The book comes along with a DVD that allows us to discover many film clips, which many belong to the collections of the members of the association Archipop, audiovisual archives of Monaco, Cliclic, the Cinémathèque de Bretagne, l’ECPAD, the Forum des Images, Trafic Image.
Jean-Pierre Bertin-Maghit. Lettres filmées d’Algérie (1954-1962) – Des soldats à la caméra. Paris : éditions Nouveau Monde, 2015. 370 pages. Softcover + DVD: 35 €.