At age fifty one, the film the Battle of Algiers has never seemed so current, as it continues to inspire, instruct and inform as much as it did when it first came out in 1966.

What is it about this classic film that has so revolutionized the very medium of political cinema? And continues to provoke thought and reflection and whose lessons are still pondered in the whole world’s movie theaters, university campuses and military barracks long after it first showing?

In a 2017 piece “The Battle of Algiers” at 50: From 1960s Radicalism to the Classrooms of West Point, Columbia university’s Madeleine Dobie notes that “The film has been acknowledged as an influence on everyone from the Black Panthers and the Red Army Faction to the military juntas of the Southern Cone. It may, however, have had the greatest impact in the United States, where it has appealed both to scholars of colonial and postcolonial history such as myself, and to members of the military and defense community.” Khalil spoke with Professor Dobie about why this film has withstood the test of time