Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
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Nadia Kaci | ... | Yamina |
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Mohamed Ourdache | ... | Said |
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Hassan Abidou | ... | Boualem |
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Mabrouk Ait Amara | ... | Mabrouk |
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Messaoud Hattau | ... | Mess |
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Mourad Khen | ... | Rachid |
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Djamila | ... | Lalla Djamila |
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Simone Vignote | ... | The aunt |
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Michel Such | ... | Paulo Gosen |
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Nadia Samir | ... | Ouardya |
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Areski Nebti | ... | Hassan the baker |
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Osmane Bechikh | ... | The postman |
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Fawzi B. Saichi | ... | The shoemender |
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Fatma Zohra Bouseboua | ... | Hanifa |
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Ahmed Benaissa | ... | The Imam |
Bab El-Oued, a popular district of Algiers, in 1989, a few months after the riots. Boualem works at night in a bakery and steals the loudspeaker that was installed on his roof and was broadcasting the Imam's word... therefore preventing him from sleeping. This blunder is taken as a pretext by the Islamists to put the district under their control... Written by Yepok
A searing film about the growing tension between secular and fundamentalist Algerians that would plunge Algeria into a blood bath soon after this movie was made.
The tendency of an oppressed society to self-mutilation is made painfully palpable: nobody is happy and nobody CAN be happy; nobody can enjoy even what they love; only hatred and despair are left. And the longing, somehow, to escape.
All the participants act as though their lives depended on it: especially unforgettable is the strikingly beautiful Hassan Abdou (listed as Abidou by IMDb) whose unique face seems to embody all the happiness that could be, but isn't.