Quotes of the Day

Rachid Bouchareb is the director and co-writer of Indigènes, a film opening in France this week that tells the little-known story of soldiers from the French colonies who fought to liberate France from German occupation. Indigènes, has become more than a movie — it's an active campaign that has already changed France's policy regarding veteran's pensions (see TIME's coverage).

An Algerian, Moroccan, French and Belgian co-production starring French comic superstar Jamel Debbouze (the grocer's assistant in Amélie), Indigènes (which means natives) will represent Algeria in the category of Best Foreign Film at next year's Oscars. (For its English language release, the film is called Days of Glory).

TIME's Grant Rosenberg sat down with Bouchareb on the day of the film's French release, only hours after the government announced that it would raise the pension of these veterans to a level equal of French veterans' pay, just as they were before the end of colonialization.

TIME: Isn't it rather pathetic that it took a movie in 2006 to get things moving on an issue that has been an injustice for nearly fifty years?

Bouchareb: It's true that it's shocking that it took a film, but that's the role of cinema. It's pathetic for all these men waiting for almost fifty years for a pension equal to their French counterparts. It was this claim that was motivating me to make the film. This is what the film is fighting for.

TIME: You had a screening for President and Mrs. Chirac. How did they react to the film?

Bouchareb: Madame Chirac said she didn't know this injustice existed. One of the film's actors overheard her say to the president, "something has to be done." At the end of the screening I grabbed Mr. Chirac by the arm and I said, "Mr. President, you need to acknowledge what these soldiers have done, and the money that is owed to them. They are between 80 and 90 years old, some are sick and they are dying every day. Do something today." And he said "yes."

TIME: How do you account for the strong reaction to this film?

Bouchareb: It's the force of cinema, of the movie, of its convictions. Today, French society has a need, a desire to understand its history. It's something I've felt all over the country, because we've been doing screenings since August 30th all around France, tracing the liberation, Marseille, Aix-en-Provence, Lyon, Besançon. We followed the soldiers' itinerary. So, why did the young people of the banlieue revolt last autumn? What's happening with France's children, as President Chirac called them after the riots last year? These French children whose origins are in the French colonies were always taught that their parents were just people who came after the war to help rebuild France, its highways, its economy. The real story is that before that, they liberated France. These kids from the banlieue, having reexamined this history, are going to get back the pride and dignity. And the [rest of the] French will see why these people are just as French as they are. Showing the film over the last month I've seen just how much people don't know about this — because it's not taught in schools. What is going to change tomorrow is the history books.

TIME: Can you recall another film in this country that has had such an effect on governmental policy like this?

Bouchareb: No. Not on this scale. Never. This is the first time.

TIME: The film ends with a block of text explaining how soldiers' pensions were frozen during decolonization in 1959, and the few attempts to address the issue through the years were abandoned. Did you ever envision the film without the message that concludes it?

Bouchareb: There were people who did say that we shouldn't put it in, that it would scare people, but I said we had to. I made the film for that. And I parted ways with several financial partners for that reason. I was motivated and carried along by this sense of injustice that had to be repaired. It's something quite strong in itself, this feeling. Today, the audience is thinking like me.

TIME: So in other words, the response to the film is its happy ending.

Bouchareb: Yes, but part of the story is still missing, which I'll tell later in another film, picking up at the end of the war. That will follow some of the same characters, beginning with the massacre in Sétif on May 8, 1945 (when French soldiers slaughtered thousands of protesting Algerians), touching on Indochina, and going through 1954 in Algeria. I've been writing the script for six months now.

TIME: Surely you had certain expectations for Indigènes, but I imagine you are a little surprised by the level of response to it.

Bouchareb: I knew the film would do well because there are hundreds of thousands of people like me who have the same story. What surprised and overwhelmed me was seeing the French population in the streets while we were making the film, bringing us photos, thanking us. At the Cannes film festival last May [where the film premiered], people came up to us to thank us for the film — people who hadn't seen it. Who says thank you for a film they haven't seen?

TIME: What have you heard from the communities in the banlieues where the rioting took place, where the populations are predominately descended from people not unlike these characters?

Bouchareb: The young people there were thanking us, just from seeing the movie's poster, this image of four proud North African soldiers. It's a powerful image. Until now France has made films about the Resistance, but not World War II films like the Americans have made, like Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan. Our movie too, now, shows that the grandparents of these young people liberated France ... along with Tom Hanks.

• An interview with Rachid Bouchareb, director and co-writer of Indigènes