Plot Summary

SPECIAL FEATURES:

DISC 1: THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS

• New high-definition digital transfer, enhanced for widescreen televisions
• Production gallery
• Theatrical and re-release trailers
• New and improved English subtitle translation

• Gillo Pontecorvo: The Dictatorship of Truth (1992): a 37-minute documentary, narrated by literary critic Edward Said
• Exclusive 51-minute documentary on the making of The Battle of Algiers, featuring new interviews with the director, cinematographer, composer, editor, actors, and film historians
• Five Directors (17 mins., 2004): Spike Lee, Mira Nair, Julian Schnabel, Steven Soderbergh, and Oliver Stone on the film’s influence, style, and importance

• Remembering History (69 mins., 2004): an exclusive documentary that reconstructs the Algerian experience of the battle for independence, featuring interviews with historians and revolutionaries, including military leader Saadi Yacef
• “États d’armes” (2002): a 28-minute documentary excerpt featuring senior French military officers recalling the use of torture and execution to combat the rebellion
• The Battle of Algiers: A Case Study (25 mins., 2004): Richard A. Clarke, former national counterterrorism coordinator and author of Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror, discusses the film’s relevance with Michael A. Sheehan, former State Department coordinator for counterterrorism, in a conversation moderated by Christopher E. Isham, chief of investigative projects for ABC News
• Gillo Pontecorvo’s Return to Algiers (58 mins., 1992): the filmmaker revisits the Algerian people after three decades of independence
• PLUS: a 56-page book featuring excerpts from Saadi Yacef’s original account of his arrest, a reprinted excerpt from the film’s screenplay, a reprinted interview with co-writer Franco Solinas, a new essay by film scholar Peter Matthews, and biographical sketches on key figures in the French-Algerian War