A Stinking Fairytale

Pre-Pearl Harbor propaganda film about young Americans, from various social backgrounds, who undergo parachute training at Fort Benning prior to becoming paratroopers.

1943 in occupied Byelorussia. It tells the story of Franz, an SS soldier who deserts, and Polina, a Byelorussian woman whose village is massacred.

A Russian platoon sweeps a village, avoiding two mishaps. At a remote check-post they play cards with bullets as stakes. A village girl pimps her deaf-mute sister for bullets. A shifty enemy sniper keeps strafing, causing a tragedy.

Iro Konstantopoulou was thirteen years old when the Germans invaded Greece. Despite her age, however, she got involved with the resistance. When she was arrested for the first time, her rich father managed to set her free, and she fell in love with a young doctor who took care of her injuries following torture. A little before the withdrawal of the Germans, she participated in the blowing up of a train that was transporting ammunition, and she was arrested again, but this time no one could save her. She was executed at the Chaïdari camp, along with forty-nine other prisoners.

In the beginning was Palestine, and the story of Younes (Orwa Nyrabia) began, known as Abou Salem, known as the Man, said to be the father of Ibrahim, fighting the English from the age of 16, still fighting, but retrenched in the Lebanon, illegal in his own country ; the story of Nahila (Rim Turki) also began, married to him when she was twelve, breast-feeding their first child, born during the villagers' exhausting trek towards the North, fleeing their burning homes, Nahila whom he met secretly in a cave in Bab El Chams, in Galilee. Again it is the story of Doctor Khalil (Bassel Khayat), abandoned by his mother in the shambles of the refugee camps, who, in Beirut, rescued Younes in a deep coma, lulling him with the tragic story of his people ; and yet again it is that of Chams (Hala Omran) whom Khalil loved and was executed by his companions in arms. Fifty years of history full of suffering, hope and love.