Dir.: Mathieu Vadepied, 2022, France/Senegal, 109', French with German subtitles

Mathieu Vadepied’s Tirailleurs (Father & Soldier), featuring international star Omar Sy, focuses on a long-marginalized history of French colonial troops (known as tirailleurs): the deployment of West African soldiers in the French army during the First World War. The focus is on a father who volunteers to accompany his forcibly conscripted son to the front. Blurring the lines between war film and family drama, Tirailleurs focuses on a father-son relationship that defies the surrounding military apparatus. The film portrays colonial violence not only as a historical structure, but also as an experience of uprooting, speechlessness, and forced loyalty. The result serves as a counter-narrative to prevailing accounts of the First World War—from a perspective that has long been excluded from historical memory.