The man who produced the film had actually led the National Liberation Front's operations in the Casbah during the war the story depicts. He wrote his account of it from a French prison cell, and when the book became a film he took on the role of El-hadi Jaffar, a character drawn from his own experience.

THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS (1966) follows Ali la Pointe, a former street criminal turned insurgent leader, as he organizes bombings and ambushes against French rule in Algeria. Brahim Hadjadj, who had never acted, plays la Pointe; Gillo Pontecorvo found him at a market in Algiers. Colonel Philippe Mathieu, played by Jean Martin, arrives with paratroopers and a doctrine of interrogation and torture meant to break the resistance cell by cell.

Martin was the only professional actor in the film. He had originated the role of Lucky in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and served in a paratroop regiment during the Indochina War, which gives his performance as a French paratroop commander an autobiographical edge.

Pontecorvo directed from a screenplay by Franco Solinas, shooting on location with non-professional Algerian actors drawn from the community. Marcello Gatti’s black and white cinematography mimics newsreel footage so closely that American distributors felt compelled to add a disclaimer stating that no documentary material had been used. Ennio Morricone co-wrote the score with Pontecorvo.

Banned in France for years after its release, the film has since been studied by military strategists and revolutionaries for its unflinching depiction of urban guerrilla warfare and colonial brutality on both sides. It remains one of the most influential political films ever made, a work that refuses to let either side claim clean hands.