Blood and tears

A film documentary by David Korn Brzoza and Pascal Blanchard

In the aftermath of World War II, as France extends its domination over more than 110 million men and women across all five continents, its colonial empire crumbles abruptly during almost a quarter of a century of blood and tears. An indelible breach that will permanently strain bodies and minds on both sides, leaving an insurmountable and little-known breach that one can now narrate, moving beyond things left unsaid, beyond the suffering and the bitterness.

With over 45 countries and territories involved across all five continents, three decades of claims, struggles, hopes and disillusions and over half a billion people still bearing this legacy today, French decolonization is one of the major shocks of the 20th century. However this key historical episode remains largely unknown and confrontational, burdened by the weight of prejudices, violence, crime, guilt and nostalgia. This project has the ambition of reconnecting the threads of this painful period while taking into consideration all its complexity and diversity. Its aim is to distinguish between truths and fabrications, lies and omissions, partisan posturing and historical realities. Through the voice of the last witnesses having experienced the events firsthand, but also through the testimony of their descendants who today are the bearers of this memory, our account will focus on the human dimension to offer for the first time a global synthesis of a shared heritage which still remains sensitive.