Footage from the early 1960s to the middle of the 1970s, shows the newly independent Algerian republic providing significant support to anti-colonial movements and revolutionaries from around the world. The successive presidents, Ahmed Ben Bella and Houari Boumédiène, transformed Algiers into a haven for militants fighting against colonial domination and racial segregation. . Che Guevara established a base there for his engagements in the African continent, Nelson Mandela, Black Panthers leader Eldridge Cleaver and prominent militants from the African national Congress were welcome in Algiers. It was Amilcar Cabral who baptized the city as “the Mecca of Revolutionaries”.

Director: Ben Salama; Writer: Amirrouche Laïdi (France)

BEN SALAMA is an author and filmmaker, he filmmaking at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Cinématographiques (IDHEC) in 1973. He was born in Algeria but settled in France from the age of 20. He has written several books, including “Au Nom de l’Islam : Enquête sur une religion instrumentalisée” (2009), and directed several documentary films, such as Une Histoire algérienne (2012), 1954, la fin d’un monde (2013), Nasser du rêve au désastre (2016)