Aliker, a new film by Guy Deslauriers, narrates the story of André Aliker, the Martinican journalist assassinated in 1934. The film is based on a script by Martinican novelist Patrick Chamoiseau.

André Aliker, a communist militant who wrote for Justice, the newspaper of the Martinican Communist Party, became widely known throughout the island as a champion of journalism as a form of free expression and as the means for the pursuit of the truth in the colonial context of Martinique in the 1930s. This commitment to free journalistic practice would cost him his life. The film, critics have said, shows what can be accomplished by a Creole film industry without access to the usual big budgets available in the industry.

« The true accomplishment of Aliker,” an early review affirms, « is that of capturing the very essence of the main character’s struggle. The class war and the gap between the white colonials and the black workers are quickly set aside to make way for the film’s (and the real-life Aliker’s) real reason-for-being: the struggle to validate the freedom of the press.”

The film stars Stomy Bugsy, the Cape Verde-born hip-hop singer/composer and is scheduled to open in France on June 6^th.

For more on the film (in French) see http://www.dvdrama.com/news-33552-cine-aliker.php