The Call

May 1, 1936

1h 49m

★ 6.0

Overview

The story of Charles de Foucauld, born September 15, 1858 in Strasbourg (France) and died December 1, 1916 in Tamanrasset in Algeria during the French colonial period, was a cavalry officer of the French army who became an explorer and geographer, then Catholic religious, priest, linguist and hermit in the Hoggar desert in Algeria.

Genres

Drama

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Cast

Charles de Foucauld

Jean Yonnel

Laperrine

Pierre de Guingand

Mademoiselle X

Jacqueline Francell

La femme du notaire

Alice Tissot

La femme du monde

Suzanne Bianchetti

Colonel

Pierre Juvenet

General

Thomy Bourdelle

Marquis de Morès

Pierre Nay

André Nox

Fred Pasquali

Auguste Bovério

Alexandre Mihalesco

This excellent feature-length documentary - the story of the imperialist colonization of Africa - is a film about death. Its most shocking sequences derive from the captured French film archives in Algeria containing - unbelievably - masses of French-shot documentary footage of their tortures, massacres and executions of Algerians. The real death of children, passers-by, resistance fighters, one after the other, becomes unbearable. Rather than be blatant propaganda, the film convinces entirely by its visual evidence, constituting an object lesson for revolutionary cinema.

10.0

The Charcoal Maker

Jan 2, 1973

Film describes the miserable existence of a charcoal-burner who is barely able to feed his family. His search for work in town ends in failure and he is forced to return to his village.

10.0

Yasmina

Jan 1, 1961

"Yasmina" filmed in 1961 in the middle of the Algerian war tells the story of a little Algerian girl with her hen and her family whose father was killed in a bombing by the French colonial army of occupation. The family, after a long journey, heads towards the refugee camps on the Tunisian border. Produced by the Cinema Service of the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic (GPRA) in the midst of the war of independence, these films were intended to re-inform the population and international public opinion on the abuses committed by the French colonial army: torture, arrests and arbitrary executions, napalm bombings, fires in douars, entire villages wiped off the map, etc. which the French media described as a "pacification" campaign. The latter censoring or reorienting any images that could harm the colonial narrative.

6.8

Far from Men

Jan 14, 2015

A French teacher in a small Algerian village during the Algerian War forms an unexpected bond with a dissident who is ordered to be turned in to the authorities.

10.0

Baya's Mountain

Dec 3, 1997

Set in the 1800s among the Berbers of North Africa, this 1997 Algerian feature concerns a noble widow who receives a customary purse of gold coins from the enemy tribe that murdered her husband; the gift puts her in conflict with her kinsmen, who want the money to buy back land taken by the enemy in cahoots with French colonials.

8.5

The Forgotten Hill

May 19, 1996

At the outbreak of the Second World War, two friends, Mokrane and Menach, abruptly interrupt their studies and return to their remote native Kabylian village of Tagsa. While waiting to be drafted into the French Army they have time to woo. Mokrane falls for beautiful Aazi and soon marries her only to find out that she can bear no child. Menach, on his part, is stongly attracted to Davda, but the latter is already married to a rich merchant...Happiness does not seem to be in store for the two former students...

10.0

The Unknown Hero

Mar 18, 2016

In the midst of the Algerian war for independence, a group of fighters is trapped in the mountains, surrounded by the colonial army. Cut off from their allies, they have only one hope: to transmit a vital message to save their unit. But crossing enemy lines is a suicide mission. Their only chance lies with an unexpected messenger: a courageous dog named Messaoud. Carrying the letter attached to his collar, he embarks on a perilous crossing, braving the hostile nature and the dangers of war. But when he is captured by the enemy, his courage and instinct become his only weapons. Prisoner, hunted, he must risk everything to escape and accomplish his mission before it is too late. Sacrifice, bravery and hope mingle in this breathtaking odyssey where the humblest of heroes can change the course of history. The Unknown Hero, a moving film which won first prize at the Arab World Festival in 2017.

7.7

The Outlaws

Jan 1, 1969

In prison in colonial Algeria, shortly after the end of the Second World War, three indigenous cellmates make out. Once free, they attack the authority represented by the triad of the boss, the gendarme and the administrator. “Living the colonial condition,” confided Tewfik Farès, “is something! It’s not sociologically or historically speaking. It’s life. And I think that’s all there in it. [...] For a hundred and thirty years, we wait. We hold back. We push back. We hope. At the same time, on different occasions, there are skirmishes, unrest.

0.0

Hustlers of Dubai

Invalid Date

Dubai - the city of controversies. Six individuals go through personal insecurities, cultural pressures, money issues and the hustle of staying true to who they are. In the world that says otherwise. Is it all really worth it ? The film touches upon Arab identity, female role in the world, family values, Islam.

5.9

Sahara

Apr 6, 2005

Seasoned adventurer and treasure hunter Dirk Pitt, a former Navy SEAL, sets out for the African desert with his wisecracking buddy Al in search of a confederate ironclad battleship rumored to have vanished long ago, the main draw being the treasure supposedly hidden within the lost vessel. When the daring duo come across Dr. Eva Rojas, a beautiful scientist who is juggling an escape from a warlord and a mission to stop the spread of a powerful plague, their desert expedition begins to heat up.

10.0

Elli Fat Mat

Nov 15, 1989

27 years after 1962, Antoine returns to Algiers...

10.0

Wind from the South

Jan 2, 1975

Néfissa, a student in Algiers, returns to her village in the south in the summer. Her father wants her to marry the mayor but she wants to continue her studies. Confronting her father and the opinion of the villagers who do not understand her, she decides to flee to Algiers. The shepherd Rabah discovering her wounded and lost in the mountains, has her treated by her mother. In contact with Nefissa, Rabat becomes aware of his exploited condition and discovers the possibilities offered to him by the cooperatives of the agrarian revolution. The two young people will go through the decisive stage together which will allow them to escape obscurantism and exploitation. Based on the novel "Le vent du sud" by Abdelhamid Benahouga

7.6

The Zerda or the Songs of Forgetting

Feb 27, 1983

“La Zerda and the songs of oblivion” (1982) is one of only two films made by the Algerian novelist Assia Djebar, with “La Nouba des femmes du mont Chenoua” (1977). Powerful poetic essay based on archives, in which Assia Djebar – in collaboration with the poet Malek Alloula and the composer Ahmed Essyad – deconstructs the French colonial propaganda of the Pathé-Gaumont newsreels from 1912 to 1942, to reveal the signs of revolt among the subjugated North African population. Through the reassembly of these propaganda images, Djebar recovers the history of the Zerda ceremonies, suggesting that the power and mysticism of this tradition were obliterated and erased by the predatory voyeurism of the colonial gaze. This very gaze is thus subverted and a hidden tradition of resistance and struggle is revealed, against any exoticizing and orientalist temptation.

10.0

The Price of Freedom

Jul 7, 2007

In the midst of the Algerian liberation war, two characters, a meddah (traditional storyteller) and a guerrab (water distributor), having become aware of their subhuman condition in their own country, join the National Liberation Army (ALN) to fight against inhumane colonialism. They will climb the ranks to become political commissioners before falling on the field of honor, the first in a skirmish and the other in Barberousse prison (Serkadji) where he will be guillotined.

5.6

Tale of an Encounter

Jan 2, 1985

Two deaf and dumb children. She is the daughter of an American Oil engineer. He is the son of an Algerian farmer. They meet and manage to communicate, transcending all the cultural barriers that separate them.

5.7

The Harem of Madame Osmane

Jul 12, 2000

In Algiers in 1993, while the civil war is starting, Mrs Osmane's tenants have to endure her bad temper. Her husband left her and the fear to lose her respectability haunt her. The former member of the Resistance during the Independence War persists in controlling the slightest moves of the households rather than struggle against her own frustrations. Learning her daughter is in love, the possibility of finding herself alone will push her to the limit: The symbolical Mrs Osmane "harem" is about to collapse.

10.0

The Olive Tree of Boul'hivet

Jan 2, 1978

Belkacem, a young unemployed man living in the Saharan village of Boulhilet, is entrusted by Bouacha, an old dervish who came from nowhere, with the secret of the olive tree, the only lush tree and true mystery in this stone desert. After water supply works, modern life bursts into the village. Belkacem, ill-prepared for this situation, confuses dream and reality. Believing he has killed his rival who loves his beloved, he flees the village after donning the clothes of the dervish, whose gait he now imitates.

4.3

Walking a Tightrope

Sep 1, 1991

A famous, ruthless writer takes a handsome young worker, with aspirations of becoming a tightrope artist, as his lover and protege, but suffers tragic consequences when he later discards him for another youth.

10.0

We Will Return

Jan 2, 1972

The story of a young Palestinian who left his refugee camp to become a resistance fighter in the Palestine Liberation Organization.

4.4

The Citadel

Jan 2, 1988

El Kalaa, a village in southern Oran. Although already married, old Sidi planned to marry another. He sets his sights on the beautiful Aïssa, with whom Kaddour, his adopted son, is in love. The old man decides to play a trick on Kaddour to teach him never to covet a woman that an elder wants to marry...