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Opium and the Stick
TITLE DETAILS

Opium and the Stick

1970-09-14 · 137 min · ★ 7.8

Action · Drama · War

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 KouiretSid Ali KouiretAli
Marie-José NatMarie-José NatFarroudja
Mustapha KatebMustapha KatebLazrak
RouichedRouichedTayeb
Jean-Louis TrintignantJean-Louis TrintignantChaudier
Brahim HadjadjBrahim HadjadjOmar
Abdelhalim RaisAbdelhalim Rais
Larbi ZekkalLarbi Zekkal
Mahieddine BachtarziMahieddine Bachtarzi
Djelloul BachdjarahDjelloul Bachdjarah
Kaci KsentiniKaci Ksentini
Ahmed Kadri (Krikèche)Ahmed Kadri (Krikèche)
Jean-Claude BercqDelécluze

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