Created by the Fabienne Colas Foundation, the 15th edition of Fade to Black Festival is part of the Black History Month programming which takes place during the month of February each year.
With a special in-person and online edition taking place from February 4 to 8, 2026, Fade to Black Festival, offers a program combining film screenings, literature, discussion panels, music shows and online cinema.
The opening evening which took place on February 4 at the Museum Cinema offered the public the opportunity to discover the film “Frantz Fanon” which was directed by Abdelnour Zahzah. This feature film, which is described as Faithful Chronicles which occurred in the last century at the Blida-Joinville psychiatric hospital, at the time when Doctor Frantz Fanon was head of the fifth division between 1953 and 1956, is a continuation of the work of Abdelnour Zahzah around Fanon, since he directed in 2002, in the company of Bachir Ridouh, the documentary film “Frantz Fanon: Asylum memory”.
In his new film, the filmmaker therefore returns to a period in the life of Doctor Frantz Fanon when he worked at the Blida-Joinville psychiatric hospital during the time of French Algeria.
Frantz Fanon, a young black psychiatrist, was trying to cure the Algerians of their alienations when the war broke out within his services. During this period, he was chief medical officer of the Fifth Division between 1953 and 1956.
Analyzing the effects of colonization, he became involved with the nationalist resistance and established contacts with officers of the National Liberation Army (ALN) as well as with the political leadership of the National Liberation Front (FLN).
Died in 1961 following leukemia at the age of 36, Frantz Fanon wrote plays as well as major essays on anti-colonial thought including Black Skin, White Masks, Year V of the Algerian Revolution as well as The Wretched of the Earth.
If in France the recognition of Fanon’s work is late, tribute is paid to him in Algeria where streets, cinemas and schools bear his name. The Joinville hospital in Blida was also renamed in memory of Frantz Fanon after the independence of Algeria, as well as the hospitals in Béjaïa and Annaba.
The release of the film by “Frantz Fanon” is a beautiful tribute to this outstanding figure of universal thought and to the activist for justice. Screened at the Annaba Mediterranean Film Festival, the film received the Jury Prize in 2024 and was selected for the world premiere at the 74th Berlinale 2024, as well as at the 21st Montreal International Black Film Festival (MIFBM) in 2025.
It should also be noted that numerous works pay homage to the work of Frantz Fanon. Several films and documentaries have already been made around this figure of the Algerian revolution including: “Fanon: black skin, white mask” by director Isaac Julien in 1996, “Frantz Fanon, a life, a fight, a work” by Cheikh Djemai in 2001, “Concerning Violence” by director Göran Olsson in 2014, “ Fanon yesterday, today » by Algerian director Hassane Mézine in 2019. More recently in 2025, the biopic “ Dewlap » by Jean-Claude Barny was screened during the 31st Festival Cinemamania from Montreal. It has been broadcast in Canada since February 6, 2026.
As a corollary to the opening evening, the screening of the film was followed by a round table around the work of Fanon. Thibault Tranchant (Doctor of philosophy and professor at Cégep Édouard-Montpetit) and Ernest-Marie Mbonda (professor of philosophy at Cégep de Sherbrooke and lecturer at UQAM and UdeM) took part in this exercise under the watchful eye of the public.
Reda Benkoula
Fondu au Noir Festival, discussion around Frantz Fanon: Thibault Tranchant and Ernest-Marie Mbonda
Trailer for the film “Frantz Fanon”, directed by Abdelnour Zahzah