

Opium and the Stick
1970-09-14 · 137 min · ★ 7.8
In 1950, in Algeria, in a village in Kabylia, Algerian resistance fighters resisted the French occupation army. Bachir returns to the village to escape the clashes ravaging Algiers. In Thala, he has two brothers, Ali and Belaïd. The first is engaged with the ALN (The National Liberation Army) and fights against the colonizer. His second brother, Belaïd, the eldest, is convinced of a French Algeria. His family torn apart, Bachir decides to join the war and takes sides against the repression of the French army. The French army is trying in vain to turn the population against the insurgents by using disinformation. The more time passes, the more the inhabitants of the village and surrounding areas, oppressed, rally to the cause of the FLN, their houses and their fields will be burned... Adaptation to the cinema of the eponymous novel Opium and the Stick, published in 1965, by Mouloud Mammeri, the film was dubbed into Tamazight (Berber), a first for Algerian cinema.
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Production details
- Directors
- Ahmed Rachedi
- Production companies
- Office National pour le Commerce et l'Industrie Cinématographique (ONCIC)
- Countries
- Algeria
- Status
- Released
Top Cast
Sid Ali KouiretAli
Marie-José NatFarroudja
Mustapha KatebLazrak
RouichedTayeb
Jean-Louis TrintignantChaudier
Brahim HadjadjOmar
Abdelhalim Rais
Larbi Zekkal
Mahieddine Bachtarzi
Djelloul Bachdjarah
Kaci Ksentini
Ahmed Kadri (Krikèche)Title information and images are supplied by TMDb. Explore our discovery guide for advice on comparing metadata and legal viewing options.
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