Anilogue 2016 - Cafard

Director: Jan Bultheel

August 1914. While Jean Mordant is away winning the title of World Wrestling Champion in Buenos Aires, his daughter Mimi is raped by German occupiers in Ostend. Jean swears he will avenge this immoral disgrace. With his coach Victor and young nephew Guido, he enrolls in the prestigious ACM, the first Armored Car Division ever. But the heavily-built armored vehicles keep getting stuck in the mud of Flanders. The battalion is hastily transferred to the Eastern front. Jean is devastated by frustration for he has just learned that Mimi is pregnant. But war conditions are ruthless and he and his friends embark on a dramatic journey that ultimately will drag them around the world. In Russia, boredom and vodka sap the troops' morale. The armored vehicle is named "Cafard": as indestructible as a cockroach but also a symbol of nostalgia and melancholy. Jean's only twinkle of hope is Jelena, a Russian nurse. But she cannot prevent his downward moral spiral. At the end of a disastrous military operation, Jean finally takes his revenge by cowardly shooting a German soldier in the back. But revenge is bitter.
-via Rotten Tomatoes

Anilogue 2016 Programme