Cheikh Djemaï looks back on the genesis of Gillo Pontecorvo’s feature film, The Battle of Algiers (1965). Through archive images, extracts from the film and interviews with personalities, the filmmaker retraces the journey of a major work – from the events of the Algiers Casbah (1956-1957) to the presentation of the Lion of ‘Or causing the anger of the French delegation in Venice – which left its mark as much in the history of cinema as in that of Algeria.