Opium and the Stick(1970)

Opium and the Stick Synopsis

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.

Opium and the Stick (1970) is a action, drama and war film directed by Ahmed Rachedi, released on September 14, 1970 with a runtime of 2h 17m. It stars Sid Ali Kouiret, Marie-José Nat, Mustapha Kateb and Rouiched. Viewers rate it 7.8 out of 10 across 9 ratings.