

The Desert Ark
Genres
Overview
The Desert Ark (L'Arche du Desert), a variation on Romeo and Juliet set in the Algerian desert. A young couple must face inevitable conflict when their rival families discover their secret love. Taking refuge in a cave, they listen to the sounds of a senseless campaign of violence and murder, which is the culmination of the extremism that has long divided their two communities. Nominated for the Golden Leopard at the 1997 Locarno Film Festival.
Details
Budget
$0
Revenue
$0
Runtime
87 min
Release Date
1998-01-28
Status
Released
Original Language
Arabic
Vote Count
6
Vote Average
6.7
Myriam Aouffen
Myriam
Abdelkader Belmokadem
Wise Omar
Hacen Abdou
Amin
Hassan Kachach
Uncle
Messaouda Adami
Houria du Ksar
Shyraz Aliane
Cousine
Amin Chouikh
Child
Hamdou Djaballah
Musician
Lynda Fares
Myriam's aunt
Rachid Dahmane
Abdelrahim Bouzine
Musician
Mustapha Boudoya
Amin's friend
Bahous Bouhafs
Beggar
Ali Bensaïb
El Moutanabi
Abdelkrime Bencheikh
Amin's brother
Smain Allaoi
6.5
East Is East
In 1971 Salford fish-and-chip shop owner George Khan expects his family to follow his strict Pakistani Muslim ways. But his children, with an English mother and having been born and brought up in Britain, increasingly see themselves as British and start to reject their father's rules on dress, food, religion, and living in general.
1999-05-14 | en
10.0
Final Round
Rachid is a young man who survives in Morroco boxing in clandestine fights in order to save enough money with which to pay a smuggler, and be able to cross the Strait of Gibraltar with his two friends.
2022-12-28 | fr
6.5
Golden Door
The story is set at the beginning of the 20th century in Sicily. Salvatore, a very poor farmer, and a widower, decides to emigrate to the US with all his family, including his old mother. Before they embark, they meet Lucy. She is supposed to be a British lady and wants to come back to the States. Lucy, or Luce as Salvatore calls her, for unknown reasons wants to marry someone before to arrive to Ellis Island in New York. Salvatore accepts the proposal. Once they arrive in Ellis Island they spend the quarantine period trying to pass the examinations to be admitted to the States. Tests are not so simple for poor farmers coming from Sicily. Their destiny is in the hands of the custom officers.
2006-09-22 | it
7.2
Bound by Chastity Rule
The widow of a nobleman bears a son after having an affair with her servant. The servant and the baby are driven from the home by the woman's irate in-laws when the truth is discovered. Even after the child is grown, no contact is allowed between he and his mother who now denies the events of her past.
1962-12-13 | ko
5.0
A Son of the Sahara
As a boy, Raoul is reared by an Arab tribe in Algerian Sahara. Years later, as a refined Europeanized gentleman, he falls in love with Barbara, an officer's daughter, who rejects him when she discovers his background. Affecting a raid, he captures her and then secretly buys her at a slave auction. When she is rescued by French troops, however, his ancestry is established and they find happiness together.
1924-04-13 | en
5.9
The Jazz Singer
A young Jewish man is torn between tradition and individuality when his old-fashioned family objects to his career as a jazz singer.
1980-12-17 | en
7.8
By the Window
Inagaki Goro plays a freelance writer married to his editor wife (Nakamura Yuri), who he discovers is having an affair with the popular novelist she is responsible for at work. Although troubled, he can’t bring himself to confront his wife. He later meets a high school novelist at a literary award ceremony, and–drawn to the award-winning book–he inquires about the model it’s based on, thinking he’d like to meet that person…
2022-11-04 | ja
7.9
The Battle of Algiers
Paratrooper commander Colonel Mathieu, a former French Resistance fighter during World War II, is sent to Algeria to reinforce efforts to squelch the uprisings of the Algerian War. There he faces Ali la Pointe, a former petty criminal who, as the leader of the Algerian Front de Liberation Nationale, directs terror strategies against the colonial French government occupation. As each side resorts to ever-increasing brutality, no violent act is too unthinkable.
1966-09-08 | it
0.0
Cave
Santi, a 17-year-old boy, plays football with his friends at the entrance of the village while Marco, his childhood friend, returns after a two year absence. The last summer Marco was in town, Santi began to feel something towards him. But while living in that cave, the best thing for him to do was to forget about it and focus on building his life based on tradition. The return of Marco throws Santi off, who had finally managed to forget him. Under the conservative gaze of all the people, he will have to fight against his feelings as he considers his identity for the first time.
2022-06-15 | ca
8.5
The Forgotten Hill
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...
1996-05-19 | ar
10.0
Machaho
In Kabylie, rude mountain region in the north of Algeria. Arezki finds the young Larbi exhausted, buried under the snow. He takes him in and nurses him until he's recovered. The host seduces Arezki's daughter. She is pregnant. This is an unsupportable shame to the father of the female sinner. Arezki claims vengeance. He leaves his house and takes the oath not to come back before having killed Larbi who betrayed him under his own roof.
1995-01-01 | ar
7.2
Dawn of the Damned
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.
1965-07-05 | fr
7.1
She's Dating the Gangster
Seventeen-year-old Athena Dizon unwittingly plays a trick on resident heartthrob and bad boy Kenji de los Reyes. All of a sudden, she finds herself pretending to be his girlfriend to make an ex jealous; however, she falls in love with him.
2014-07-16 | tl
10.0
The Charcoal Maker
Film describes the miserable existence of a charcoal-burner who is barely able to feed his family. His search for work in town ends in failure and he is forced to return to his village.
1973-01-02 | ar
7.1
Moolaadé
When a woman shelters a group of girls from suffering female genital mutilation, she starts a conflict that tears her village apart.
2004-08-04 | bm
7.0
Mohabbatein
At a prestigious all-male university, three friends seek love outside of the school grounds; at the same time, a newly-hired music teacher seeks to befriend and loosen up the militantly strict headmaster.
2000-10-27 | hi
0.0
Mera Naam Hai Mohabbat
This film's story is based upon the famous romance novel 'Love Story' by the American writer Erich Segal.
1975-08-06 | ur
6.4
Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam
A newly-wed man discovers that his wife is in love with another man and decides to unite them. Ignoring the ridicule he might have to face for this, he takes his wife to Italy in search of her love.
1999-06-18 | hi
0.0
Dear God
A poetic Jerusalem told through the eyes of Aaron, a simple Wailing Wall guard that follows a mysterious beautiful woman's notes in the holy stones of Jerusalem.
2015-01-27 | en
6.7
The Beauty of Vice
In the mountains of Montenegro people have lived by strict and Draconian laws for centuries, almost untouched by modern civilization. However, a young couple are going to seek their fortune on the more liberal coast and there they find jobs in the nudist colony. Hundreds of naked bodies and atmosphere of joie d'vivre make the husband and wife question their rigid way of life.
1986-01-06 | sh