Jacques Panijel, 1962, 70 min. French with English subtitles
Screening followed by a discussion with Madeleine Dobie
On the night of October 17, 1961, Parisian police brutally repressed a peaceful demonstration of Algerians protesting France’s colonial war in Algeria. Dozens were killed while the French state imposed a strict silence on the massacre. Octobre à Paris, directed by Jacques Panijel, was one of the first attempts to break that silence, weaving together first hand testimonies, archival documents, and reconstructed scenes to bear witness to a tragedy the authorities sought to erase.
Completed in 1962, Octobre à Paris was immediately banned by French censors, and it would take over a decade for the ban to be lifted. Today, Panijel’s film stands as a landmark of militant cinema and a courageous act of historical memory.
Madeleine Dobie is Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Columbia. Her areas of expertise include Francophone/postcolonial literature, colonial history, and 18th-century culture, and she has a particular interest in Algerian history and culture. She is currently working on a book about testimony given long after a violent or traumatic event, including belated accounts of the Algerian Revolution written by combatants and militants. A second current book project is about literature, cinema and other forms of artistic expression in contemporary Algeria.
This screening is part of Columbia Maison Française CENSORED FILM SERIES - FALL 2025.
