FAITHFUL

Available for rental: Saturday, June 19, 2021 @ Noon PDT → Tuesday, June 22 @ Noon PDT

MEET THE DIRECTOR!
Join our Zoom Discussion with director HELIER CISTERNE, on Sunday, June 20 @ Noon PDT.
If you purchase the film or the Virtual Festival Pass, you will receive the Zoom invitation. Questions about the discussion? Email kelstob@csus.edu.

Suggested short film pairing: Miss

During a trip to Paris in the 1950s, Fernand Iveton (Vincent Lacoste, The Freshmen – SFFF 2019, also in Delete History streaming this year at the SFFF), who lives in Algeria, meets Hélène (Vicky Krieps, from P.T. Anderson’s The Phantom Thread and the upcoming M. Night Shyamalan film Old).

He is a communist pied noir (born in Algeria – a French colony since 1830 – from European parents); she is a Polish woman whose family escaped the communist regime. Despite their differences, they fall in love and Hélène agrees to follow him to Algiers with her son.

There, the battle for independence has started and Vincent, faithful to his convictions, joins the fight alongside the Algerians. The French are after him, and in 1956 he is arrested for having planted an undetonated bomb in his factory. He has neither killed nor injured anyone, yet faces the death penalty. The life of Hélène, who has become the wife of a “traitor,” is turned upside down. But, faithful to her love, she refuses to abandon Fernand.

Hélier Cisterne’s third feature film is based on Fernand Iveton’s true story as told in the novel De Nos Frères Blessés by Joseph Andras, which won the prestigious prix Goncourt du Premier Roman (first novel) in 2016. Both the book and the film are equally critical of the French colonial involvement in Algeria and the role played by future French President Francois Mitterrand in trying to crush the Algerian resistance.

Faithful is an engaging exploration of the Algerian independence movement through the life of ordinary people. It is a story of love and political commitment shattered by conflicts of state. It is one of the most important French films about the war in Algeria since The Battle of Algiers (SFFF 2004).

This film is part of Young French Cinema, a program of UniFrance and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy.

Not Rated (some violence).

Original Title: De nos frères blessés

Reviews

Eye-opening true story.
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