Free Men

Free Men is a 2011 French war drama film written and directed by Ismaël Ferroukhi, which recounts the largely untold story about the role that Algerian and other Muslims from the Maghreb in Paris played in the French Resistance and as rescuers of Jews during the German occupation (1940–1944). It features two historic figures: Si Kaddour Benghabrit, rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris, and Salim Halali, an Algerian Jewish singer. The film stars Tahar Rahim playing a fictional young Algerian and Michael Lonsdale as the rector. Plot In occupied Paris, the young unemployed Algerian, Younes Ben Daoud, makes a living on the black market. He is arrested by the police, and to avoid prison he agrees to spy on the Paris Mosque. The police suspect that the mosque leadership, including its rector Si Kaddour Benghabrit, is helping resistance fighters and protecting North African Jews by giving them Muslim birth certificates. While at the mosque, Younes meets the Algerian singer Salim Halali. They become close friends. When Younes learns that Salim is Jewish and sees the work that the people of the mosque are doing, he stops collaborating with the police. The mosque has extended its hospitality to shelter European Jews seeking refuge in Paris and at risk during roundups by the Nazis. He becomes involved with Algerians who are part of the French Resistance, and who are also preparing for their own fight for independence from French colonialism after the war. Gradually he becomes transformed from being a politically ignorant immigrant into a fully fledged resistance fighter.