DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT What History remembers from wars is numbers, highlights and legends. What has been actually experienced by its participants, their day-to-day, personal stories, feelings are not passed on us. I want to give them back an identity, taking a more sensitive and human way that begins from the individual and heads towards to major events. El Hadi is one of these humble soldiers. When I was a child, I often questioned my father about him. Since the elders were keeping a kind of lid over this period, his story was revealed to me only through mere footnotes and my imagination was filling with adventures. We are following the itinerary of El Hadi during the Algerian Revolution. By his word and the discussions with people he meets, we discover his story on the different given localities of his acts, in Algeria and France. A dialogue between his personal story and the official History is being created.Through Fidai, I wish to bring a fresh perspective on the Algerian Revolution, a subjective and necessary look. In view of the situation of the increasing loss of its participants, it is urgent to build a memory that binds the intimate to the collective, my generation with that of the elders and encourage the transmission. 2012 marks the 50th anniversary of the Algerian Revolution / Independence. Currently the whole North African / Arab region is in upheaval. This film sheds light on questions of historical knowledge and the collective silence about crucial historical and political events in the region, using the example of what used to be the role model of Arab emancipation.
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