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82% Critic Match
Octobre à Paris
8.2 / 10• 2011• 1h 10m•NR• French
DocumentaryHistoryDrama
Storyline
On October 17, 1961, 30,000 Algerians demonstrated peacefully in Paris to protest the discriminatory curfew imposed upon them and to demand Algerian independence. Under the authority of the then Prefect of Police, Maurice Papon, the demonstration was brutally repressed, resulting in the deaths of dozens of Algerians. Historians cite eleven thousand arrests, dozens of murders, demonstrators thrown into the Seine, hundreds of expulsions, and just as many complaints that went unanswered; all for a night that would become a blind spot in the national narrative. No investigation, no trial, and certainly no commemoration. The day after the demonstration, Jacques Panijel began filming *October in Paris* to alert the public to the massacre that had just taken place in the streets of Paris. The film was banned by the French authorities. It obtained a distribution license in 1973. It was first shown in theaters in October 2011.
What People Are Saying
5.0
“A staggering achievement of craft and ambition. Jacques Panijel's vision lands with breathtaking precision.”
4.0
“Every frame feels alive. Octobre à Paris is the rare release that takes its audience seriously.”
