The Rabbi's Cat (2011)

Director
Antoine Delesvaux; Joann Sfar

Main cast
François Morel; Maurice Bénichou; Hafsia Herzi; Jean-Pierre Kalfon; Daniel Cohen

Genres
Animation, Adventure

Description
Based on the best-selling graphic novel by Joann Sfar, The Rabbi's Cat tells the story of a rabbi and his talking cat, a sharp-tongued feline philosopher brimming with scathing humor and a less than pure love for the rabbi's teenage daughter. Algeria in the 1920s is an intersection of Jewish, Arab and French culture. A cat belonging to a widowed rabbi and his beautiful daughter, Zlabya, eats the family parrot and miraculously gains the ability to speak. With the power of speech comes unparalleled sardonic wit as the cat question's faith, tradition and authority in a provocative exploration of God, lust, death, phrenology, religious intolerance, love, and the search for truth. Rich with the colors, textures, flavors and music of Mediterranean Africa, the film embarks on a cross continent adventure from the tiled terraces, fountains, quays and cafes of colonial Algiers to Maghrebi tent camps, dusty trading outposts, and deep blue Saharan nights in search of a lost Ethiopian city.


Similar movies

The grandfather welcomes us into his blue grotto, there was still beautiful memories of childhood to tell Kirikou: the times when he helped the men and women of his village and elsewhere ... He tells us how Kirikou, thanks to his bravery and intelligence, came to the aid of the strong woman. He tells us by what trick the little hero found the grumpy old man, who had been lost in the bush, and how a cherry threatened by the witch was finally able to pass on his knowledge to the villagers. We also discover the secret of a mysterious blue monster, and finally through a flute linked to the family of our small and valiant heroes, the magical power of music.
Two clans of snakes cohabit in the desert. Beautiful green serpents that live under the shelter of an oasis, protected and venerated by men and poisonous snakes that survive in the sand, dust and heat, hunted and killed by the Tuaregs. Here is the story of Ajar, a young poisonous serpent, laughed at by his peers because he still has not done his first moult and that of Eva, rebellious princess of the oasis who wants to escape to escape an arranged marriage. These two will meet and fall in love. Alas, Eva will be kidnapped by the Tuaregs and Ajar, accompanied by her best friend, Pitt the Scorpion, will have to cross the ruthless Sahara to save Eva from the terrible fate awaiting her.
Bugs Bunny hosts an award show featuring several classic Looney Tunes shorts and characters. This movie was released in 1981 by Warner Bros. and was produced by Friz Freleng. New footage was one of the final productions done by DePatie-Freleng Enterprises (also known as Marvel Productions beginning in the 1980s) and the film was re-released in the USA on April 28, 2009 from Warner Home Video.
As they begin their journey home from their student exchange term, Charlie Brown and the gang find themselves sidetracked. They have severe car trouble and more importantly, they pass by various monuments to World Wars I & II. With Linus guiding them through these memorials, they learn about the events of the wars and the sacrifices required of the troops who fought them.
A Martinique charter boat skipper gets mixed up with the underground French resistance operatives during WWII.
Dashing legionnaire Rick O'Connell and Beni, his weasel of a companion, stumble upon the hidden ruins of Hamunaptra while in the midst of a battle in 1923, 3,000 years after Imhotep has suffered a fate worse than death; his body will remain undead for all eternity as a punishment for a forbidden love.
Two tigers are separated as cubs and taken into captivity, only to be reunited years later as enemies by an explorer (Pearce) who inadvertently forces them to fight each other.
When they realize the times are changing, five crooks decide to switch from bank robberies to personality abductions.
When an archaeological expedition opens an ancient Egyptian tomb, the unimaginable evil of a cursed pharaoh is unleashed.
The youngsters Matahi and Reri are in love with each other. The old warrior Hitu announces that Reri is to be the new chosen virgin for the gods. This means she must stay untouched, otherwise she and her lover will be killed. But Matahi abducts and escapes with her to an island ruled by the white man, where their gods would be harmless and powerless. Tabu is the last film from director F.W. Murnau; he died before the film’s premiere in a car accident.
Two gangsters named Lukas and Marc planned to have a nice evening in an brothel. When both of them selected their girls for the night, a bunch of demons starts to attack the brothel. The few ones who survived this attack are confronted with the daugther of the devil herself. She needs the blood of 666 victims to resurrect her father. Lukas and Marc must stop her!
In Fort Lamy, French Equitorial Africa, idealist Morel launches a one-man campaign to preserve the African elephant from extinction, which he sees as the last remaining "roots of Heaven." At first, he finds only support from Minna, hostess of the town's only night club, who is in love with him, and a derelict ex-British Army Major, Forsythe. His crusade gains momentum and he is soon surrounded by an odd assortment of characters: Cy Sedgewick, an American TV commentator who becomes impressed and rallies world-wide support; a U.S. photographer, Abe Fields, who is sent to do a picture story on Morel and stays on to follow his ideals; Saint Denis, a government aide ordered to stop Morel; Orsini, a professional ivory hunter whose vested interests aren't the same as Morel's; and Waitari, leader of a Pan-African movement who follows Morel only for the personal good it will do his own campaign.
Marine Sergeant James O'Hearn is being tried at the San Diego Marine base for desertion, theft, scandalous conduct and destruction of property in time of war. He refuses to testify or plead guilty or not guilty to the charges. Showgirl Ginger Martin takes the stand against his protest. She testifies O'Hearn won't talk because he is protecting the name of his pal, Marine Private Davey White. Ginger tells how she, broke and stranded, met the two marines in Shanghai two weeks before Pearl Harbor.
Comedy adventure based on a Jules Verne novel about the ups and downs of jewel thieves in the wilds of Africa circa 1900. George Segal is the appealing hero-heel and Ursula Andress is visually stunning as the lady in the proceedings. Orson Welles has a small role.
Scouring the ocean depths for treasure-laden shipwrecks is business as usual for a thrill-seeking underwater adventurer and his wisecracking buddy. But when these two cross paths with a beautiful doctor, they find themselves on the ultimate treasure hunt.
Mere seconds before the Earth is to be demolished by an alien construction crew, Arthur Dent is swept off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher penning a new edition of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."
A low-born thief loves a Moroccan Princess. She must marry to escape death at the hands of her enemies. The groom is able to wed or cast away his bride simply by saying "I Marry You" or "I Divorce You" three times.
The story of Rob Cole, a boy who is left a penniless orphan in an 11th-century English mining town when his mother dies of a mysterious illness. Vowing to become a physician and vanquish Death itself, he travels to Isfahan in Persia to study medicine under the great Ibn Sina. Through countless ordeals and challenges, and making many sacrifices along the way, he struggles on unwaveringly. His unflagging quest for knowledge leads to the blossoming of friendship and true love.
When Professor Henry Jones Sr. is invited to give lectures all over the world in May 1908, he takes along his wife and son, and invites his former tutor Miss Helen Seymour to teach Henry Jr. during the trip. Their first stop is Cairo, Egypt. When Junior, who prefers to be called 'Indy' and Miss Seymour visit the pyramids, they are invited by T.E. Lawrence (another former student of hers) to join an archaeological dig. When the mummy disappears and a priceless headpiece is stolen, young Indy gets his first taste of adventure. On their next stop in Tangiers, the family stays with Professor Jones' former class mate Walter Harris. Indy befriends a young slave named Omar who belongs to Emily Keen. The two of them get into trouble when they Indy insists on visiting the market place to see a salted head displayed on a pole. Caught by slave traders, they are end up at an auction from which only Harris can attempt to rescue them.
In this mythical fantasy, the evil queen of Atlantis lives in a magnificent palace, the halls of which are filled with the mummified remains of former lovers.
Aviator Marie Vallières de Beaumont (Cotillard) goes on a journey to find her lover Bill Lancaster after his plane disappears in the Sahara. After her plane is forced down in the Ténéré she meets Lieutenant Antoine Chauvet (Canet) of the French Camel Corps who joins in the hunt for Lancaster. As the two endure hardships in the desert, they begin to develop feelings for each other.
Richard Dacier owns a tour agency specialized on organizing safaris for European tourists eager to confront the African wild life. Actually, he took the job after his father and never went into the savanna by himself. As he owes big money to some mobster, he is compelled to convey a fake tourist, with a suspicious suitcase, toward Mozambic. To avoid suspicion from the authorities, he is supposed to tour a group of tourists as usual. The only problem - he is completely unexperienced as a guide!
American ne'er-do-well Joe January is hired to take Paul Bonnard on an expedition into the desert in search of treasure.
Audrey, a determined young American woman, arrives in the Philippines with a mysterious mission, little money, and no chance of success. But when she enlists the help of two friendly locals, Hazel and Rey, and an extremely unfriendly American expatriate, Nick, suddenly the possibility of success comes into view. All they have to do is cross 300 miles of roads, jungles, and ocean, ward off the attacks of a vicious local motorcycle gang, and keep themselves from killing each other. It's going to be a bumpy ride.
James Bond is back and on the loose in exotic Istanbul looking for a super-secret coding machine. He's involved with a beautiful Russian spy and has the SPECTRE organization after him, including villainess Rosa Klebb - she of the killer shoe. Lots of exciting escapes but not an over reliance on the gadgetry of the later films. The second James Bond feature, thought by many to be the best.
Set in 1890, this is the story of a Pony Express courier who travels to Arabia to compete with his horse, Hidalgo, in a dangerous race for a massive contest prize, in an adventure that sends the pair around the world...
German commandos are dropped behind enemy lines in the Sahara Desert tasked with getting to Casablanca in an assassination attempt on allied leaders.
After their caravan is attacked and their respective families butchered by Arab marauders, teenagers David and Sarah flee across the desert. But the desert is filled with danger from the elements, animals and the unwholesome appetite of the Jackal, a sheik who wants Sarah for himself. However, the desert also holds temptation and love. David and Sarah hide out in an oasis and build a life for themselves, discovering each other in new ways.
The invention everyone is after is definitely of the science fiction type. It's a special tie-clip that when used with a pair of infra-red contact lenses enables the user to see through walls! The guy that stole them from the professor is putting it to good use by wearing it while playing poker and cleaning up! He should think bigger. The first thing Roger does when he discovers this little novelty is use it to spy on his girlfriend getting dressed! That's more like it. This film really gets around. We travel from the Riviera to Geneva to Paris to Casablanca (the Casbah no less), and to Copenhagen. We even get a tour of the Tuborg brewery. There's a prolonged gun battle amongst the giant beer tanks. Talk about product placement!
The Three Wise Men – Balthazar, Melchior and Gaspard – are on their way to Bethlehem to pay homage to the infant Jesus when they are suddenly, an inexplicably, transported two thousand years into the future. They find themselves walking the streets of Paris, where they encounter a young woman called Macha who, they are convinced, will lead them to the newborn Messiah.
INTER SCI climatologist Dr. David Kotzman has evidence that a shift in the Earth's polarity triggered the last Ice Age...in a single day. Now, it's happening again, and there's no time to escape. As the temperature plummets, Miami is blasted with snow and ice. Evacuation routes are jammed. The only chance David, his old flame Bryn, and a few other hopeful survivors have is to hole themselves up in a special chamber at INTER SCI. A desperate race for survival is ignited as nature's fury rages and the temperature plunges toward -459.67° F...ABSOLUTE ZERO!
1880. British India. Robert Case, a half-caste lieutenant, is unjustly discharged from the British Army. He joins the rebel Bengali tribesmen offensive against the colonial enemy. They capture a foreign journalist and Case recounts his story of false accusation on trumped-up charges, instigated by the bigotry and racism of his commanding officers. Following a successful attack by the British against the rebels Case is brutally shot by Colonel Drewe, his accuser. The journalist returns home determined to report the true story of The Brigand of Kandahar.
Marion and Mingus live cozily – perhaps too cozily – with their cat and two young children from previous relationships. However, when Marion’s jolly father, her oversexed sister, and her sister’s outrageous boyfriend unceremoniously descend upon them for a visit, it initiates two unforgettable days that will test Marion and Mingus’s relationship. With their unwitting racism and sexual frankness, the French triumvirate hilariously has no boundaries or filters… and no person is left unscathed in its wake.
In the First World War, T.E Lawrence helped to unite feuding Arab tribes into a formidable guerrilla army which helped to topple the Ottoman Empire. But today Lawrence has an extraordinary new relevance. His experiences of defeating a foreign military occupation, and of leading an insurgency, have led to him being held up as the man who cracked fighting in the Middle East. Lawrence had aimed, he said, ‘to write his will across the skies’ and build a new independent Arab nation, but in these two films Rory Stewart shows how Lawrence felt his dream ended in catastrophe and shame. Drawing a comparison between Lawrence's experience and today, Rory explains how Lawrence came to the conclusion that foreign military interventions in the Middle East are fundamentally unworkable. He concludes, 'Looking at Iraq and Afghanistan today, I believe very strongly that Lawrence's message would not have been do it better, do it more sensitively, but don't do it at all.'.
A drama about the Algerian struggle for independence from France after WWII.
An American wheeler-dealer (Victor Mature) woos a colonel's (George Dolenz) wife (Yvonne De Carlo) amid danger at a French Foreign Legion fort.
In September 1942, the German Afrika Korps under Rommel have successfully pushed the Allies back into Egypt. A counter-attack is planned, for which the fuel dumps at Tobruk are a critical impediment. In order to aid the attack, a group of British commandos and German Jews make their way undercover through 800 miles of desert, to destroy the fuel dumps starving the Germans of fuel.
A poor French teenage girl engages in an illicit affair with a wealthy Chinese heir in 1920s Saigon. For the first time in her young life she has control, and she wields it deftly over her besotted lover throughout a series of clandestine meetings and torrid encounters.
Dissidents in a French colony attack a police station and take hostages.
The story of a great rivalry between a father and son, both eccentric professors in the Talmud department of Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The son has an addictive dependency on the embrace and accolades that the establishment provides, while his father is a stubborn purist with a fear and profound revulsion for what the establishment stands for, yet beneath his contempt lies a desperate thirst for some kind of recognition. The Israel Prize, Israel's most prestigious national award, is the jewel that brings these two to a final, bitter confrontation.
A stylish political thriller where love and war collide in Southeast Asia. Set in early 1950s Vietnam, a young American becomes entangled in a dangerous love triangle when he falls for the beautiful mistress of a British journalist. As war is waged around them, these three only sink deeper into a world of drugs, passion, and betrayal where nothing is as it seems.
Tabataba tells the story of a small Malagasy village during the independence uprising which took place in 1947 in the south of the country. For several months, part of the Malagasy population revolted against the French colonial army in a bloody struggle. The repression in villages that followed was terrible, leading to fires, arrests and torture. Women, children and the elderly were the indirect victims of the conflict and suffered particularly from famine and illness. One leader of the MDRM Malagasy Party, which campaigns for the independence of the country, arrives in a village. Solo (François Botozandry), the main character, is still too young to fight but he sees his brother and most of the men in his clan join up. His grandmother, Bakanga (Soavelo), knows what will happen, but Solo still hopes his elder brother will return a hero. After months of rumours, he sees instead the French army arrive to crush the rebellion.
Cynical British journalist Fowler (Michael Redgrave) falls in love with a young Vietnamese woman, but is dismayed when a naïve U.S. official (Audie Murphy) also begins vying for the girl’s attention. In retaliation, Fowler informs the communists that the American is selling arms to their enemy. Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz's drama paints a rosier picture of U.S. involvement in French Indochina than Graham Greene’s provocative 1955 novel.
French colonists in Africa, several months behind in the news, find themselves at war with their German neighbors. Deciding that they must do their proper duty and fight the Germans, they promptly conscript the local native population. Issuing them boots and rifles, the French attempt to make "proper" soldiers out of the Africans. A young, idealistic French geographer seems to be the only rational person in the town, and he takes over control of the "war" after several bungles on the part of the others.
Night after night, not long before dawn, two young adults, Patricia and Emile, meet on a sound stage to discuss learning, discourse, and the path to revolution. Scenes of Paris's student revolt, the Vietnam War, and other events of the late 1960s, along with posters, photographs, and cartoons, are backdrops to their words. Words themselves are often Patricia and Emile's subject, as are images, sounds, and juxtapositions.
The Song of the Rivers, or Das Lied der Ströme, is a 1954 documentary production by the East Germany's Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft (DEFA). Dutch filmmaker Joris Ivens was the leading director. The sprawling film celebrates international workers movements along six major rivers: the Volga, Mississippi, Ganges, Nile, Amazon and the Yangtze. Shot in many countries by different film crews, and later edited by Ivens, Song of the Rivers begins with a lyrical montage of landscapes and laborers and proceeds to glorify labor and modern industrial machinery. The musical score is by Dmitri Shostakovich, with lyrics written by Berthold Brecht, and songs performed by German communism's star Ernst Busch and famous American actor, singer and activist Paul Robeson who also narrates. Song of the Rivers is an ode to international solidarity.
In Paris during WWII, an Algerian immigrant is inspired to join the resistance by his unexpected friendship with a Jewish man. Based on not very known facts about the Muslim community in Paris during WWII, when the Paris Mosque and its dynamic leader played a pivotal role in supporting the resistance and rescuing Jews.
The story starts in the 1930's at one of the largest rubber-tree plantations in Indochine (Vietnam). This plantation is owned by the French colonist Eliane, a proud woman who lives with her father and her native adoptive daughter Camille. She doesn't have a husband or a man in her life (apart from her father), but gets to know the young officer Jean-Baptiste when both want to buy the same painting at an auction. They have a short affair, but then she refuses to see him again. In the meantime it's Camille who has fallen in love with Jean-Baptiste and Eliane knows it. She makes sure he's sent to one of the most desolate outposts on some remote island, making sure that the two will never see each other again. Camille has no choice, but to marry the man she was promised to, but in the meantime she starts a search to find the man she really loves.
The plot in this story weaves around like a New Year's reveler at four in the morning, heading first in one direction and then in another, with the intention of going home if things would just stop moving. Bernard (Gerard Depardieu) is a doctor whose Hippocratic oath was a hypocritic failure -- the not-so-good doctor kills his wife because she is having an affair, and he kills her lover too. Then he joins the French Foreign Legion. On his way to the former French colonies in Africa, the plane he is in crashes, and Rossi, a "friend" on the plane with some overweight in carry-on money, shoots Bernard and takes off, leaving him for dead. He is nursed back to life and health by friendly villagers and just his luck, he not only manages to make his fortune in Africa, he also nabs a French passport from a dying man who will clearly not need it anymore unless the Pearly Gates have a French guard.
Tracing the struggle of the Algerian Front de Liberation Nationale to gain freedom from French colonial rule as seen through the eyes of Ali from his start as a petty thief to his rise to prominence in the organisation and capture by the French in 1957. The film traces the rebels' struggle and the increasingly extreme measures taken by the French government to quell the revolt.
One day in Europe shows stories set in four European countries. All of them involve thievery in some way or the other. The protagonists are strangers in the respective country. For none of them their stay turns out as planned.
A young French woman returns to the vast silence of West Africa to contemplate her childhood days in a colonial outpost in Cameroon. Her strongest memories are of the family's houseboy, Protee - a man of great nobility, intelligence and beauty - and the intricate nature of relationships in a racist society.
India, 1937. Anne-Marie Stretter is the wife of the French ambassador and leads a solitary yet privileged life in Calcutta. The tedium of her existence is relieved by numerous illicit love affairs with government officials, young men who find her an object of desire and fascination. The Vice Consul is driven insane by his love for her and, expelled from the ambassador’s palace, cries like a sick animal. Life continues for Anne-Marie Stretter, the same tedious existence…
Martial Perrin is the president of a right-wing political party which is gearing itself up for a forthcoming election. When he learns that a notorious criminal named Kraus has escaped from prison, Perrin panics and goes into hiding. His deputy, Constant, hires Perrin’s cousin, Gilbert, an actor who is a perfect double of Perrin, to replace him. What Gilbert does no know is that the killer Kraus is bumping off the people who were implicated in the affair for which he was arrested, and that Perrin is next on his list.
The film begins with the final moments of the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, when the final assault of Viet Minh is imminent. The weakened French garrison awaits reinforcements that arrive with a single plane under the command of Major De Clairefons. The outpost commander, Basque Lt. Col. Pierre-Noel Raspeguy (Quinn) fights to protect the group, but the paras are slaughtered as they land
Nelly leaves her lazy, unemployed husband to work for retired judge Mr Arnaud, forty years her senior, after he offers to clear her bills for her. While she types his memoirs the two develop a close friendship, but Arnaud becomes jealous when Nelly begins dating his good-looking young publisher.
In the mid-18th Century, as England and France battle over control of Canada, an epic romance between a peasant woman and a trapper unfurls

© Valossa 2015–2024