Virtuel Production

In Algiers, in June 1957, Maurice Audin, a 25-year-old mathematician, was arrested by French paratroopers. His wife, Josette, and their three children never saw him again. This documentary interweaves testimonies from French and Algerian protagonists: activists for Algerian independence, lawyers, historians, and military personnel. Drawing on the research of historian Pierre Vidal-Naquet, it blends archival footage, newspaper articles, books, drawings, and reenactments to reconstruct the context of this disappearance and denounce the torture and murder practiced in Algeria. Josette Audin is the central figure and the moral compass of this film.

On September 13, 2018, President Emmanuel Macron visited Josette Audin at her home in Bagnolet to ask for her forgiveness, presenting her with a declaration acknowledging that her husband had died under torture at the hands of a "legally established system" implemented by the former French colonial power in Algeria. This acknowledgment, however belated, is a victory for Josette Audin and her family, but above all, it is a victory for human rights, achieved together by mathematicians and historians. This film retraces this shared commitment against torture and state abuses, first within the Audin Committee and then within the Committee of Mathematicians, which also intervened to support other mathematicians imprisoned and sometimes tortured around the world.