A Civilized People(1999)
Lebanese director Randa Chahal Sabbag spins this bleak war drama about the brutal absurdity of the urban warfare of Beirut during the 1980s. Opening with the shocking image of kittens being blown apart, the film loosely follows the travails of Bernadette (Nada Ghosn), a naïve country girl sent to the city as a maid for a mansion long since abandoned by the owners. There she meets Therese (Renee Dick), a veteran house cleaner who takes her under her wing. One day, while accompanying her friend to the cemetery, she meets a rakish Arab militiaman, and the two fall in love.
Movie: A Civilized People
Top 9 Billed Cast
Najat
Ousmane
Antoine
HomePage
Overview
Lebanese director Randa Chahal Sabbag spins this bleak war drama about the brutal absurdity of the urban warfare of Beirut during the 1980s. Opening with the shocking image of kittens being blown apart, the film loosely follows the travails of Bernadette (Nada Ghosn), a naïve country girl sent to the city as a maid for a mansion long since abandoned by the owners. There she meets Therese (Renee Dick), a veteran house cleaner who takes her under her wing. One day, while accompanying her friend to the cemetery, she meets a rakish Arab militiaman, and the two fall in love.
Release Date
1999-09-04
Average
7
Rating:
3.5 startsTagline
Genres
Languages:
FrançaisKeywords
Recommendations Movies
All About Actresses(fr)
A director wants to make a documentary about actresses, all actresses: the popular ones, the unknown ones, the intellectuals, the comedians, the forgotten ones... Filming everything, with or without their consent, the director gets caught up in the game and lets herself be devoured by these women, who are as fragile as they are manipulative.
All About Nina(en)
Nina Geld's passion and talent have made her a rising star in the comedy scene, but she's an emotional mess offstage. When a new professional opportunity coincides with a romantic one, she is forced to confront her own deeply troubled past.
Iron Jawed Angels(en)
Defiant young activists take the women's suffrage movement by storm, putting their lives at risk to help American women win the right to vote.
Mr. Morgan's Last Love(en)
A widowed professor living in Paris develops a special relationship with a younger French woman.
TalhotBlond(en)
Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.
The Safety of Objects(en)
In a suburban landscape, the lives of several families interlace with loss, despair and personal crisis. Esther Gold has lost focus on all but caring for her comatose son, Paul, and neglects her daughter and husband. Lawyer Jim Train is devoted to his career, not his family. Helen Christianson wants to find a new spark in life, while Annette Jennings tries to rebuild hers.
Introducing Dorothy Dandridge(en)
An acclaimed stage performer, Dorothy still struggled with the challenge of her color, in a time that wouldn't let some stars in by the front door. Yet against the odds she beat out many more famous rivals for the role of "Carmen Jones", becoming the first black woman ever nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award. Marriages and affairs would break her heart, but her heart was strong. Seductive and easily seduced, she was born to be a star - with all the glory and all the pain of being loved, abused, cheated, glorified, undermined and undefeated. Here was a woman who wouldn't wait in the wings. Halle Berry stars as Dorothy Dandrige.
Juste une illusion(fr)
1985. Vincent, almost 13, lives in the suburbs of Paris in a middle-class family, between a distant older brother and parents in constant conflict. Although he is no longer a child and not yet an adult, the film follows his reflections and doubts about identity, friendship, family, and his questions about religion, desire, and love.
It Must Be Heaven(fr)
Filmmaker Elia Suleiman travels to different cities and finds unexpected parallels to his homeland of Palestine.
Age of Panic(fr)
May 6, 2012. Cable news reporter Laetitia is covering the French presidential elections, while Vincent, her ex-husband, demands to see their two young daughters. It's a manic Sunday in Paris: two agitated girls, a frazzled babysitter, a needy new boyfriend, a grumpy lawyer and France cut in half!
The Trials of Cate McCall(en)
In order to be reinstated to the bar and recover custody of her daughter, a hotshot lawyer, now in recovery and on probation, must take on the appeal of a woman wrongfully convicted of murder.
Jeune Femme(fr)
Broke, with nothing but her cat to her name and doors closing in her face, Paula is back in Paris after a long absence. As she meets different people along the way, there is one thing she knows for sure: she's determined to make a new start and she'll do it with style and panache.
Sex Is Comedy(fr)
A director struggles with a difficult sex scene between a young actor and actress who can't stand one another. Aided by her loyal assistant, she is hell-bent on getting the scene right without compromise.
Chaos(fr)
A bourgeois couple, modern yet conventional. One night by accident, a young prostitute barges into their lives. Hounded down, beaten up, threatened, she will continue to struggle, with the help of a well off lady, first for her survival-her resurrection-then for her dignity and freedom. Stormy encounters for everyone involved.
The Crisis(fr)
Victor is a legal advisor who finds himself abandoned by his wife and fired the same day. He tries to seek comfort from different friends and family members, but everyone he meets is concerned with their own problems. His morale begins to falter when he realizes that no one cares about him.
A Dry White Season(en)
During the 1976 Soweto uprising, a white school teacher's life and values are threatened when he asks questions about the death of a young black boy who died in police custody.
Return(en)
Back from a tour of duty, Kelli struggles to find her place in her family and the rust-belt town she no longer recognizes.
Starving in Suburbia(en)
When seventeen-year-old Hannah stumbles upon a website about Thinspiration--an online community devoted to anorexia as a life choice--she becomes an obsessive follower of the site founder, ButterflyAna. By the time Hannah's family realizes what is happening and get Hannah the help she needs, the disease has fully taken hold and Hannah is refusing to eat. Will this family be able to exorcise the demon of anorexia from their lives?
The Day I Saw Your Heart(fr)
Justine, struggles with commitment, listens to old David Bowie covers, and uses her employer’s private MRI machines to make “X-Ray Art” After a trail of boyfriends, Justine thinks she has found The One, a hunky shoe salesman, but her temporary happiness is thrown when her neurotic 60-year-old Jewish father (Michel Blanc) suffers a delayed midlife crisis and announces that his young second wife is expecting a baby. Justine and her half-sister Dom, who is trying to adopt, are rather annoyed at the news. Coupled with resentment about her father’s absence when she was growing up, causes her to spiral into self-doubt. Overflowing with French charm, Justine gets by with the help of her family, friends, and newly discovered muse.
Similar Movies
The Nativity Story(en)
Mary and Joseph make the hard journey to Bethlehem for a blessed event in this retelling of the Nativity story. This meticulously researched and visually lush adaptation of the biblical tale follows the pair on their arduous path to their arrival in a small village, where they find shelter in a quiet manger and Jesus is born.
Macondo(de)
A drama centered on an 11-year-old Chechnyan refugee living in Vienna whose life is thrown into disarray when a friend of his deceased father materializes.
Fruit Punch(cn)
Five young men threw themselves with heart and soul into the work force. They have different approaches and different life styles.
The Story of Woo Viet(cn)
The Story of Woo Viet, seven years before they traded wistful looks in An Autumn's Tale. Chow, in one of his earliest and meatiest film roles, plays the title role of Woo Viet, a Vietnamese refugee who hopes to immigrate to the United States.
Maid to Order(en)
Spoiled Jessie Montgomery, whose wild behavior and spending excesses cause her well-meaning but exasperated millionaire father Charles to wish he never had her, is visited by fairy godmother Stella. In an effort to save Jessie, Stella casts a spell which causes Charles to no longer have a daughter. Jessie, now penniless and without a friend, must take a maid's job to earn a living, and hopefully to learn her lesson.
Return to Me(en)
It took a lot of cajoling to get Bob, a recently widowed architect, to go on a blind date at a quirky Irish-Italian eatery. Once there, he's smitten instantly not with his date but with the sharp-witted waitress. Everything seems to be going great until an unbelievable truth is revealed, one that could easily break both of their hearts for good.
Hi, Are You Alone?(es)
Nina is a 20 years old girl from Valladolid who lives with her divorced father, an autoritarian and conservative man. Trini is of the same age and has lost her mother. For both Valladolid and their families have nothing to offer and therefore they go on a risky voyage to the Costa del Sol at the south of Spain.
Nemesis(de)
Claire and Robert spend most of their time in a house they own in the beautiful and remote countryside in Italy. Their life seems to be perfect. But when Claire's sister gets murdered in the very same house, the traumatic event shakes up their relationship. Disappointment, fear and resentment they swept under the rug for years, resurface. Revealing the dark side of a blissful love - a dream that turns into a nightmare. It is the story of two people trapped in a dark secret.
American Splendor(en)
An original mix of fiction and reality illuminates the life of comic book hero everyman Harvey Pekar.
Season of Love(en)
A queer lady holiday movie that follows the lives of three very different couples in dealing with their love lives in various loosely interrelated tales all set right before Christmas through New Years.
Noor(ur)
Noor wants to be a man. He doesn't belong anymore to the Khusras, Pakistan's transgender community. And he is definitely done with the love story he had with one of them, that had drastically changed his life. Now, he is doing a man's job in a Truck Decoration Center and he made up his mind: he will find a girl who will accept him as he is.
Yoshiko & Yuriko(ja)
Based on a true story, Yoshiko and Yuriko relates the journey and great love affair of Yoshiko, who was a renowned translator of Russian literature and drama, and Yuriko, who was a feminist novelist and great activist of the post-war democratic literature movement. Both have left huge marks on Japanese literary history. The two women shared a strong attraction to each other from their first meeting and enjoyed a powerful love affair. Yoshiko reveals that she's an out lesbian, whilst Yuriko is married (not altogether happily) to a well-known scholar - a situation she can't walk away from with ease.
Girls of the Night(ja)
In the wake of the 1956 Prostitution Prevention Law, a young woman recently released from one of Japan's new rehabilitation centers struggles to build a new life.
Squandered Sunday(cs)
A day in the life of Arnošt, a soldier staying in Josefov. A sense of desperation permeates the environment as well as the mind of the protagonist. It is sunday, and saturday left just a hangover. Days go by, nothing changes. A metaphor for the political situation in the Czech lands at a time where depicting a soldier as a drunk was considered out of place to say the least.
The Yes Men(en)
A comic, biting and revelatory documentary following a small group of prankster activists as they gain worldwide notoriety for impersonating the World Trade Organization (WTO) on television and at business conferences around the world.
The Two of Them(hu)
Looking for a safe place to live after being harassed by her husband, a depressive and violent man, Juli stays at a women's shelter run by Mária.
Voice of Silence(ko)
Two guys who are working for cartels as cleaners get a request to monitor an 11-year-old kidnapped girl, but the situation gets worse when their supervisor gets killed.
Beaches(en)
Follows the serendipitous meeting of two young girls on the Venice Boardwalk, who, though worlds apart in lifestyle, embark on unexpected and lifelong friendship. CC is an aspiring singer trying to make it in Los Angeles. Hillary is the daughter of a prominent civil rights lawyer who struggles to find her own destiny. Their friendship—even with its ups and downs—sustains them for decades.
Saturday, Sunday and Monday(it)
Rosa, a mature mother of several children, is concerned that her beloved husband Don Peppino is losing interest in her, and does his best to provoke some jealousy in him. She is a masterful cook, and if her romantic charms are fading, her culinary skills are not. By one means and another, and after some amusing confrontations, she succeeds in keeping her husband from taking her for granted and harmony is restored.