La Nuit s'achève

A father and his son embark on a trip to the father's long-abandoned birthplace in the company of the son's lover who seeks the grave of a grandfather he never knew. They travel across Algeria, a bustling country in transition, which to them is primarily the country of childhood memories and passed-on family stories. The Night is Fading is an intimate travelogue that astutely combines several timelines and personal stories in an attempt to examine the colonial past and the post-colonial present in French-Algerian relations. First-time director Cyril Leuthy approached this complex issue through the story of his own family whose father line reaches back to a mining town in northeast Algeria. It has been 50 years since he fled from the war and the director's father, Bernard, has finally found the courage to return home and confront his childhood memories in El Kouif with the reality of today. The result is a film about family roots, unspoken secrets and, eventually, about reconciliation. (IFF Bratislava)