Współczesne kino francuskie wobec pamięci postkolonialnej

Abstract

Contemporary French Cinema Facing Postcolonial Memories

For years little has been said the French public discourse about North and West African contribution to the World War II efforts, the sacrifice in blood of their soldiers was mentioned only rarely and occasionally. However, filmmakers embraced this topic unfamiliar to the public. Rachid Bouchareb – a French director of Algerian descent – is one of them. His film Indigènes (2006) is a tribute of sorts to the “forgotten heroes”, who have lost their lives fighting Germans in the south of France and later Alsace. By portraying four soldiers, the artist poses important questions regarding topics such as ethnicity, equality, discrimination, and racism, but also that of being forsaken, leaving an emptiness in the collective mind of a nation. The author describes the attitude of contemporary French filmmakers towards the postcolonial past and themes of ethnicity, concentrating on a film by Rachid Bouchareb. The picture seems to be especially relevant from the point of mutual relations between ethnicity, the politics and culture.