The Gardeners of the Martyr's street

Synopsis

Almost 40 years after the war in Algeria ended, in a workers’ garden in Tourcoing, a city in the North of France, French and Algerian men cultivate their piece of land. These men were the conscripts, National Liberation Front militants or “harkis” in a colonial war led by the French Republic.This garden holds a place for memory of many aspects, where men who could have met at war or in the factory, get together. It is cultivating a vegetable garden, a universal activity above all, that brings them together.Sharing from a distance a common history, considering each other with indifference or even hostility, for cultural, social or political reasons, they work side by side on the same patch of land.

Festival

États généraux du film documentaire Lussas 2003 (France)