Heliopolis

May 20, 2021

1h 56m

★ 8.3

Story inspired by real facts

Overview

In the city of Guelma, which was once called Heliopolis in ancient times, the daily life of an Algerian family takes its usual course. But on May 8, 1945, the day the end of World War II was announced, demonstrations by the Algerian people against the French colonial power and for the country's independence took place, which were bloodily suppressed by the French army and French settler militias. The event went down in history as the Sétif and Guelma massacre.

Genres

Drama

History

War

Production Companies

Agence Algérienne pour le Rayonnement Culturel

Prod’Art Films

Heliopolis Trailers

Cast

Mokdad

Aziz Boukrouni

Mahfoud

Mehdi Ramdani

Nedjma

Souhila Mallem

Gervais

Alexis Rangheard

Bachir

Mourad Oudjit

Sedek

Fodil Assoul

Marcel Lavie

Jacques Serres

Claude Roland

Cesar Duminil

Bertrand Roland

Laurent Gernigon

Farhad Abass

Mustapha Laribi

Smail

Nacereddine Djoudi

Mabrouk

Mohamed Frimehdi

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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...

7.4

City of Life and Death

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In 1937, during the height of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Imperial Japanese Army has just captured Nanjing, then-capital of the Republic of China. What followed was known as the Nanking Massacre, or the Rape of Nanking, a six week period wherein tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers and civilians were killed.

9.0

Children of the Sun

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No overview available.

5.9

DNA

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A woman has a close bond with her beloved Algeriann grandfather, who protected her from a toxic home life as a child; his death triggers a deep identity crisis as tensions between her extended family members escalate, revealing new depths of resentment and bitterness.

9.0

Under The Ashes

Jan 1, 1990

The Second World War. French authorities ban political parties and unions. In Algeria, the leaders of political and trade union organizations were arrested and interned in "surveillance" camps with more than 2,000 French and foreigners: communist activists, trade unionists, brigadists, Spanish republicans and other opponents of the Vichy regime. The Djenien Bourezg camp is one of these camps, located in southern Algeria and is one of the most formidable. An old activist for the Algerian national cause returns to the scene. He blows away the ashes that cover this part of history. And through it, we discover the hard fight of the camp inmates for respect and human dignity, under a fascist command.

10.0

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Jan 1, 1980

Rabie is a kid from Sétif in 1980, trying to collect money to buy a wheelchair for his paralyzid sister Sassia, so she can get out of the house.

7.2

Dawn of the Damned

Jul 5, 1965

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.

6.6

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6.8

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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.

7.1

El Topo

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El Topo decides to confront warrior Masters on a trans-formative desert journey he begins with his 6 year old son, who must bury his childhood totems to become a man.

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7.3

Dark Night, October 17, 1961

Jun 7, 2005

Parisian authorities clash with the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN) in director Alain Tasma’s recounting of one of the darkest moments of the Algerian War of Independence. As the war wound to a close and violence persisted in the streets of Paris, the FLN and its supporters adopted the tactic of murdering French policemen in hopes of forcing a withdrawal. When French law enforcement retaliated by brutalizing Algerians and imposing a strict curfew, the FLN organizes a peaceful demonstration that drew over 11,000 supporters, resulting in an order from the Paris police chief to take brutal countermeasures. Told through the eyes of both French policemen as well as Algerian protestors, Tasma’s film attempts to get to the root of the tragedy by presenting both sides of the story.

7.0

Coup de Torchon

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A pathetic police chief, humiliated by everyone around him, suddenly wants a clean slate in life, and resorts to drastic means to achieve it.

6.4

Fadhma N'Soumer

May 1, 2014

This film, is about the courage and the determination of a young woman in djurdjur"as mountain in Algeria, fighting for her ancestor land during the earlier years of french occupation.

7.0

Jamila, the Algerian

Dec 9, 1958

Djamila, a young Algerian woman living with her brother Hadi and her uncle Mustafa in the Casbah district of Algiers under the French occupation of Algeria, sees the full extent of injustice, tyranny and cruelty on his compatriots by French soldiers. Jamila's nationalist spirit will be strengthened when French forces invade her university to arrest her classmate Amina who commits suicide by ingesting poison. Shortly after the prominent Algerian guerrilla leader Youssef takes refuge with her, she realizes that her uncle Mustafa is part of this network of anti-colonial rebel fighters. Her uncle linked her to the National Liberation Front (FLN). A series of events illustrate Jamila's participation in resistance operations against the occupier before she was finally captured and tortured. Finally, despite the efforts of her French lawyer, Jamila is sentenced to death...

6.1

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Two small town Dutch boys whose socially unnatural friendship is so close, they care nothing for human or divine rules and lose all grip on reality, sliding into violent crime.