Annette's Life is a 2018 documentary film by Nina Robert and Denis Robert, dedicated to the life of Anne Beaumanoir, a French neurologist, neurophysiologist, and communist activist.
At just 19 years old, in 1942, Anne Beaumanoir had already experienced so much: involved in the clandestine communist youth movement, she had begun medical studies, secretly distributed parcels, saved Jewish children, changed her identity, lost her first love, and narrowly escaped death several times.
Twelve years later, as a courier for the FLN (National Liberation Front), she was sentenced by France to 10 years in prison for terrorism, but fled to Algeria where she became the principal advisor to the Minister of Health under Ben Bella. Until the military coup, she moved to Switzerland where she would head the neurophysiology and epileptology division of the Geneva University Hospital for 26 years.
Through the eyes of Annette, witnesses, and rediscovered friends, this film recounts the story of Algeria, France, and its litany of buried tragedies: racism, the fight for freedom and independence. Ultimately, Annette instills in us a necessary and difficult-to-define virtue: courage.