The Olive Trees of Justice

The Olive Trees of Justice

Synopsis

James Blue’s first feature and only fiction film was banned in France for years. Adapted from the largely autobiographical novel by Jean Pélégri, who also stars as one of the film’s protagonists (and who also played the policeman in Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket), Blue’s dramatic film was clandestinely shot on location in Algiers and the surrounding countryside at the height of the Algerian War. Inspired by Italian Neorealism, it is a unique and evocatively photographed document of a violent historical crisis unfolding moment by moment in the most seemingly bucolic of circumstances.” – MoMA