Les Indigenes ("Days Of Glory")

I watched this movie titled "Les Indigenes" in French few days back; and I was really impressed! The English international title of the movie is "Days Of Glory".

"Indigenes" in French means natives in English or "Bumiputra" in Malay. This movie tells a World War II story of more than 100,000 African soldiers who landed on the beaches of Provence in France. They then moved on to liberate Marseille and Toulon and fight their way up to the bloody standoff with the Nazis in Alsace.

More than 23 nationalities from the French empire fought to free the motherland, but were referred to disparagingly as indigènes, or "natives". They suffered racism and humiliation, were denied the same rations as French soldiers and, after the war, received pensions sometimes 10 times lower than the French.
The film's director, Rachid Bouchareb, who grew up in an Algerian family in Paris's run-down immigrant suburbs, said he wanted to rescue an important part of his ancestors' history from "national amnesia", and make the president, Nicolas Sarkozy, reconsider his draconian views on immigrants.

And what is sad is that those "indigenes" who fought for France are now denied the army pensions (it was frozen in the 1960s after the colonies gained their independence). And yet France claim its a land of " liberty, fraternity and equality". The cast and crew of the movie have circulated a petition for the government to issue African soldiers with back payments of army pensions.

The film won the Prix d'interprétation masculine at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival.