"Les Mots qu'elles eurent un jour" is a unique documentary. Few indeed are the documentaries that investigate... another documentary.
However, this is the case with this film, seeking to learn more about a filmed report made in 1962, shortly after the Evian Accords, which marked the end of the Algerian War. A number of women who were NLF (National Liberation Front) activists, with the exception of one, were released from prison in Rennes in March '62 and transported overnight to Paris, where they were welcomed at the premises of the CIMADE (Inter-Movement Committee for Evacuees). The politically committed filmmaker Yann Le Masson brought them all together and filmed their discussions on the role of women in independent Algeria. Unfortunately, the film mysteriously disappeared and when it was later found, it was without its soundtrack.
After Le Masson's death in 2012, his friend, director Stéphane Pillosio, undertook to give a voice back to these women, who had been silenced by the loss of the soundtrack
But making their words audible was no easy task: with no names, no voices, and Le Masson's memories uncertain, with no notes taken, how could he proceed? Little by little, Pillosio pulled at the thread, finding trace of one woman after another. Several had died, while others, for personal or security reasons, preferred not to express themselves publicly. The filmmaker even had specialists read the participants' lips, but they could only reconstruct part of what they said.
What is almost certain is that at this point in their lives, these women hoped to have gained social equality and respect from their "brothers" in the NLF. Unfortunately, as after many wars or revolutions, the women who had fought bravely were sent back to their homes, while the men were busy vying for power.
Well although the puzzle remains incomplete in the end, the women filmed in black and white one day of march '62, are not overlooked any longer. They exist anew, young and beautiful each in their own way, dignified and respected. This magical interlude in their lives, captured between a period of imprisonment and the disappointing return home, will never disappear again.
