Ciné-Guerrillas: Scenes from Labudovic Reels

In 1959, President Tito of Yugoslavia sent Montenegro-born cameraman Stevan Labudović to Algeria, to report on its war of independence against the French. Despite often-dangerous conditions, he had shot nearly 30 hours of film there by the time the country gained its independence, in 1962. His reports were shown in member countries of the Non-Aligned Movement, serving as an antidote to the propaganda of the French occupiers.

In Ciné-Guerrillas: Scenes from the Labudović Reels, filmmaker Mila Turajlić investigates the reason Labudović’s material is stored in an archive in Belgrade, rather than Algeria. Interviews with Labudović, his wife and Algerian fellow combatants offer insights into his methods, as well as his courage and passion.

Labudović does not conceal the fact that some of the scenes he shot were re-enacted. These weren’t convincing enough, however, so the Algerian resistance movement sent him to the front to get real footage of the conflict. As an elderly man, Labudović travels to Algiers for a moving tribute to him. He died before the film’s completion, at the age of 91.