Mohamed Zineddaine

Sixteen-year-old Hamid sits alone on a small boat in the port of Kenitra, surrounded by ships, sirens and screaming seagulls. "Why does everything feel so fake? Am I cursed?" From this haunting opening, the film unfolds in flashbacks, revealing the weeks that brought him to this moment.

Omar, the miller's son, has been in love with Laila, the daughter of the local landowner, since childhood. In adulthood, Omar has become a promising journalist and writer. He still loves Laila, but she has promised herself to someone else to save her family from bankruptcy...

On the outskirts of Khouribga, a mining town exploiting phosphates, a 16-year old teenager, Abdou, is anxious to regain the gift of human dignity through learning how to read and write. His adoptive mother Mbarka, the neighborhood’s healer, protects her privileged status with ways that the laws of obscurantism allow her. Ch’Aayba, a 30-year old guy, uncontrollable and ferociously cynical, is an eccentric pickpocket. Suffering from a skin disease, Abdou convinces him to come see Mbarka in order to get treatment for it.

Adil and Rachid have known each other since childhood. Adil never wanted to stay and live in Morocco and always dreamed of settling on the other side of the Mediterranean. He thus ends up in Bologna, Italy, where his brother has lived for a long time. There, Adil leads two parallel lives: on one hand, he takes care of his disabled older brother; on the other, he works for a trafficker.