Three things to know about What the day owes to the night, by Yasmina Khadra by Alexandre Arcady

C8 rebroadcasts this portrait of Algeria from the 1930s to the 1960s against the backdrop of an impossible love story.

Adaptation of a best-seller

Before becoming a film, this romantic fresco recounting 30 years of Algeria (from the 1930s to the 1960s) against the backdrop of an impossible love story was a book. And not just any book! An international best-seller, awarded the Prix roman France Télévisions 2008, which earned its author Yasmina Khadra the opportunity to break her sales records in Japan, Canada, Belgium and Spain. Disappointed by the 2004 adaptation of his Death by Okacha Touita and by the proposals from America which were made to him for The attack (well before Ziad Doueiri took it on magnificently), the author hesitated for a long time before giving the green light to any transposition of What the day owes to the night. Until Alexandre Arcady could not find the words in a letter explaining his motivations. And we are waiting for 2019 for another adaptation of a work by Khadra but this time in the form of an animated film: The Swallows of Kabul directed by Zabou Breitman

Filming in the middle of the Arab Spring

What the day owes to the night marks the grand return of Alexandre Arcady's camera to Tunisia, his native country and the land of two of his first feature films which made him known to all: The sirocco blow in 1979 and The great carnival in 1983. It had been more than 30 years since he had filmed there. And this very political film was born in an atmosphere that was in keeping with its story: that of Arab Springwhich was triggered by the self-immolation of a Tunisian street vendor in Sidi Bouzid on December 17, 2010.

Van Gogh's cameraman in the light

For the light of What the day owes to the nightAlexandre Arcady decided to call on Gilles Henry, with whom he had already collaborated two years earlier for Like the five fingers of the hand. Camera Assistant on Police And Under the Sun of Satanhe took his first steps as director of photography in 2011 under the aegis of the same Maurice Pialat in Van Gogh. Regular collaborator of Pierre Salvadori since Moving targetby Philippe Harel (The forbidden woman…), Laurent Bouhnik (Zonzon…) or Laurent Tirard (Molière…), he has since found Alexandre Arcady for 24 days, the truth about the Ilan Halimi affair.