Directed by Shadi Abdel Salam • 1969 • Egypt
Starring Ahmed Marei, Ahmad Hegazi, Nadia Lutfi
One of the most important Egyptian films ever made—and the only narrative feature directed by Shadi Abdel Salam—is a stately, hypnotic experience that has the otherworldly aura of a trance. Based on the true story of a nineteenth-century clan that raided the tombs of pharaohs and sold priceless artifacts on the black market, THE NIGHT OF COUNTING THE YEARS is a singularly transfixing work that wrestles with nothing less than the meaning and precariousness of a country’s cultural heritage.
Directed by Shadi Abdel Salam • 1970 • Egypt
Starring Ahmad Anan, Ahmad Hegazi, Ahmed Marei
Based on one of the major texts of classical Egyptian literature, THE ELOQUENT PEASANT is a folkloric morality tale in which a peasant, wronged by a greedy nobleman, must rely on his elegant speaking styl...
Directed by Med Hondo • 1970 • France, Mauritania
Starring Robert Liensol, Théo Légitimus, Gabriel Glissand
A furious howl of resistance against racist oppression, the debut from Mauritanian director Med Hondo is a bitterly funny, stylistically explosive attack on Western capitalism and the lega...
Directed by Agnès Varda • 1970 • United States
Agnès Varda turns her camera on an Oakland demonstration against the imprisonment of activist and Black Panthers cofounder Huey P. Newton. In addition to evincing Varda’s fascination with her adopted surroundings and her empathy, this perceptive sho...
