Alongside The Battle of Algiers by Gillo Pontecorvo (1966), Chronicle of the Years of Fire stands as one of the great cinematic narratives of decolonization. Whereas Pontecorvo embraces the realism of reportage to capture the machinery of repression and urban guerrilla warfare, Lakhdar-Hamina opts for the breadth of a historical and symbolic epic. Divided into six chapters, the film unfolds the awakening of a national consciousness, from the 1930s to the outbreak of the Algerian War of Independence on November 1, 1954. It interrogates both colonial violence and the internal fractures of a people on their path to liberation. Through its visual power and epic scope, the film inscribes the Algerian struggle within a universal memory of resistance — a memory still alive today, resonating painfully with other contemporary struggles for dignity and self-determination.

Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina, the only African and Arab filmmaker ever to receive the Palme d’Or, passed away on May 23, 2025, in Algiers — the very day his film was revived at Cannes Classics, marking, in a poignant coincidence, the 50th anniversary of that Palme. — MALIK BERKATI