Dozens of postcards spread out on a table. A hand rummages through the sunny images of the streets of Algiers. Then a voice remembers: “I can still smell the spices.” These memories are those of Clara François’s great-aunt, the first to appear in her documentary A Suitcase per Person, released in 2023. This lively woman looks back on her youth in Algeria, full of nostalgia. Her family is pied-noir and was repatriated to France at the time of the war, when they seemed to lead a carefree existence in French Algeria.
It is this story that Clara François, director, wanted to echo. “This has been on my mind for a long time”specifies the 27-year-old from Rennes, who studied cinema specializing in documentaries in Brussels and Paris. “When I was a child, my family spoke of Algeria as their native country. So much so that at 7 or 8 years old, I told a friend that I was Algerian.”
Reality quickly caught up with her. “My father explained to me that it was much more complicated than that. Unlike others, this subject was never taboo for him. He has read widely and has the most informed comments on the subject.” The speeches delivered around a meal, tinged with emotion to the soul, had until then questioned the 7th art enthusiast. Why so much spleen in the words of the pieds-noirs? Did they realize the colonial system in which they participated? Especially since Clara François’ paternal grandmother, also born in Algeria, killed herself at the age of 57, after returning to France. The film tries to understand this gesture by showing to what extent the arrival in Brittany, experienced as a forced exile, marked his ancestor Jeannine, who became sad and depressed after a bright childhood on the other side of the Mediterranean.
The 32-minute medium-length film gives voice to several family members so that they can recount their experiences in a simple format. “in the form of informal exchanges” accompanied by period photos. A first for the documentarian’s great-uncle, whom she knew little and who had never shared her story, even with her children. In his modest living room, he remembers, moved, the departure from Algeria and then the malicious behavior towards them when they settled in Rennes. We also see him preparing a coca, a tomato pie, a specialty of Pied-Noir families.
Read also: Algerian War: holiday camps in Brittany welcomed young Algerians
“Several surprises”
“I had several surprises during filming, I didn’t really know where I was going”indicates Clara François, who was aware that the subject was often a source of things left unsaid. The flattering image of the older generations is thus counterbalanced by the speech of the director’s father, much more critical of the situation and the colonial dimension of the pieds-noirs, their vision of the indigenous populations, the relations of domination there. “I deliberately refused for it to be a head-on debate in the documentary, but rather a discussion, because I think that would not have contributed much”explains the former Bréquigny high school student, now an assistant director for various productions. Nevertheless, the disapproval caused a reaction to the broadcast: “My great-aunt stood up in the room to say that none of this was true!”
This student work, continued by Clara François a year after her master’s degree and visible on the Breton platform Kub, is also intended to shed light on the issue of the pieds-noirs in the Armorican peninsula. “As much as the community is very important in the south of France and therefore we address these questions, the presence of pieds-noirs in Brittany seems less well known to me”adds the golden-haired filmmaker, who wanted “let this story be heard”.
Read also: Harkis welcomed in Brittany: “There was enormous mutual assistance. Everyone could support each other”
Like her father, and her grandfather before him, she thus became a transmitter of memories. “If we don’t tell what happened, people my age might not know anything about this past”she says. The first to discover A Suitcase per Person were none other than the sons of his great-uncle, who died just before the release of the documentary. In addition to the viewing, Clara François gave them their father’s testimony at length: “That’s what touched me the most, I think.”
One suitcase per person, documentary by Clara François from 2023, 32 minutes. Available until November 14, 2024 on the Kub platform (kubweb.media)
