Algerian siirtomaasota 1954-62. Algerian itsenäistymisen puolesta taistelevasta FLN-järjestöstä tulee Ranskan pahin vihollinen, ja pian levottomuudet puhkeavat armottomaksi sodaksi kapinallisten ja Ranskan armeijan välillä.
Algeria's entry for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, "Zabana" chronicles the life of Ahmed Zabana, a man who fought for Algerian freedom in the Battle of Algiers. This film chronicles Zabana's fight to free his country to independence, and his death at the hands of French authorities.
This 17-minute documentary is featured on the 3-Disc Criterion Collection DVD of The Battle of Algiers (1966), released in 2004. An in-depth look at the Battle of Algiers through the eyes of five established and accomplished filmmakers; Spike Lee, Steven Soderbergh, Oliver Stone, Julian Schnabel and Mira Nair. They discuss how the shots, cinematography, set design, sound and editing directly influenced their own work and how the film's sequences look incredibly realistic, despite the claim that everything in the film was staged .