Mohamed Lakdar Hamina, the first director to win the prestigious Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, has died at the age of 95.

The director won the award in 1975 for "Chronicle of the Years of Fire," a historical drama about the Algerian war of independence.

Hamina, who was the oldest Palme d'Or winner, had participated in the French Riviera festival four times.

His 1967 film "The Winds of the Aure" won the prize for best debut.

The Algerian struggle for independence is at the heart of his most famous work, which in six chapters from 1939 to 1954 tells the story of a nation, culminating in the uprising against French colonialists.

Born on February 26, 1934 in M'sila, in the Aures mountain region of northeastern Algeria, Hamina was the son of humble peasants from the high plains. He studied at an agricultural school and then in the southern French city of Antibes, located on the Mediterranean coast, not far from Cannes, where he met his future wife. They had four sons.

During the Algerian War, his father was kidnapped, tortured and killed by the French army. In 1958, he was mobilized and joined the Algerian resistance in Tunisia.

He learned cinema by doing, working as a newsreel intern before turning to short films. | BGNES, AFP