“During his excursions in Africa, Machin must have shot about 20 films: documentaries on the rich African fauna, on tribes and on various colonial matters. Perhaps it was for this reason that this film director had a huge advantage, in comparison to his colleagues, and which made him appear in a different light: whilst other adventure-film directors limited everything to filming game hunts, Machin went on to criticise the conditions of Africans’ life, and to subtly condemn the consequences of colonialism. He could not help but to denounce the unjust situation, and this subject appears repeatedly in many of his last films, perhaps particularly in Maudite soit la guerre.

Apart from Machin’s two main trips to the heart of Africa (trips which historians have been able to reconstruct), it is probable that the Flemish film director returned to the African continent even during his stay in Belgium. In 1913 his African documentaries are shown on the Parisian screens. They deal mainly with North Africa, therefore we can assume that he travelled briefly in that area. It would be rash to think that the first showing of this film came about only 4 or 5 years after Machin’s second trip: we must remember that Pathé’s policy was to distribute the production three months after the last takes”. (Marianne Thys)