Sixty years after its release, The Battle of Algiers remains one of the most powerful and urgent political films ever made. Gillo Pontecorvo’s masterpiece on French colonial repression in Algeria still retains an extraordinary visual and political force that feels strikingly contemporary today. The screening will be introduced by Romain Gavras, acclaimed filmmaker and one of the most influential music video directors of the last two decades. With Athena (2022), presented in competition at the Venice Film Festival, Gavras explored the racial and social tensions of contemporary France, deeply inspired by the imagery and themes of Pontecorvo’s classic.