October in Paris (Octobre à Paris)
Jacques Panijel, 1962, 70 min.
French with English subtitles
Screening followed by a discussion with Madeleine Dobie

On the night of October 17, 1961, Parisian police brutally repressed a peaceful demonstration of Algerians protesting France’s colonial war in Algeria. Dozens were killed while the French state imposed a strict silence on the massacre. Octobre à Paris, directed by Jacques Panijel, was one of the first attempts to break that silence, weaving together first-hand testimonies, archival documents, and reconstructed scenes to bear witness to a tragedy the authorities sought to erase.

Completed in 1962, Octobre à Paris was immediately banned by French censors, and it would take over a decade for the ban to be lifted. Today, Panijel’s film stands as a landmark of militant cinema and a courageous act of historical memory.

Watch the trailer here

Speaker

Madeleine Dobie is Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Columbia. Her areas of expertise include Francophone/postcolonial literature, colonial history, and 18th-century culture, and she has a particular interest in Algerian history and culture. She is currently working on a book about testimony given long after a violent or traumatic event, including belated accounts of the Algerian Revolution written by combatants and militants. A second current book project is about literature, cinema and other forms of artistic expression in contemporary Algeria.

The film series presents films that were censored upon their release in France, Lebanon, or the United States – and often banned in other countries as well. Produced between 1943 and 1985, these films were suppressed by state authorities who considered them searing indictments of the prevailing social and political order. The full festival program can be found here.