As They Say

Benjamin is at war: with life, with adults, with himself. From his earliest childhood onwards, the 13-year old has been shunted from one care home to another. When his mother has to go to prison, he is sent to his father, whom he has never known. The man turns out to be a dead loss, a warehouseman who's given up on life, a man in his mid-40s who still lives with his Moroccan parents in a high-rise block in the banlieue. Benjamin's turbulence and violence soon prove too much for his new family.

In love with Brazil and Maria, a soap opera heroin harassed by a corrupt contractor, Abdelinho suffers parallel ordeal in Morocco by pressure of Amr Taleb, a dogmatic, moralistic priest, enforcing religious purity on the community

When Abdelsellem gets out of prison, his friend Nourredine is waiting for him. They spend the night celebrating their freedom and reencounter in the streets of Tangiers. During their wanderings, they meet up with Marcela, a Brazilian woman of extreme and suicidal tendencies, who draws them inexorably down into her madness. The three characters plunge into the narrow city streets meeting glue-sniffers, hash-smokers, illegal immigrants, and letting themselves be dragged down into what seems like hell.