Naima Lamcharki

Slimane is a young boy who has never known his mother, who disappeared under mysterious circumstances when he was only one year old. His father denies him believing he is the fruit an incestuous relationship. Slimane decides to investigate and find out what really happened before he was born. Reality and fiction intertwine to weave the story of life.

The Town of Owls is an isolated residential community situated in the High Atlas Mountains. It is inhabited by families and guards of a secret political prison camp, which remained out of history for a long time until the early 1990s. Guards spend their long days back and forth between the secret prison and the village, through a suspension bridge built upon a deep valley that connects the village with the fortress prison.

A Franco-Moroccan couple leaves France to settle in Morocco and faces the eyes of others. The large villa is a poignant drama that highlights cultural differences between France and Morocco and offers a beautiful lesson in tolerance.

In Paris, Clara, psycho motor therapist, and Ismaël, music teacher, have been lovers for four years. Happy, the couple are expecting their first child and decide to move in together. But the news is not well received by their respective families because Clara is Jewish and Ishmael a Muslim. Although not practicing, this difference will gradually sow trouble in their love life.

Allal, a street vendor who sells vegetables to cover the expenses of treating his seriously ill daughter, decides to travel to another city due to bad conditions. He works as a truck driver and lives in the hope of working for a large company owned by the son of one of his friends who comes from abroad.

The film revolves around a young man named Jilali who lives a difficult life in the village and suffers from poverty. He is encouraged by his uncle and one of his friends about the city. One day he decides to abandon his village and go to the city, there he finds great difficulties and obstacles, and pays the high price in order to succeed.

Mustapha, a young Moroccan living on small shots, meets a couple of Spanish tourists. The latter dragged him into a heavy traffic of hashish. Forced to flee his country, he finds himself on a makeshift boat, among other men. They are determined to clandestinely reach the Spanish shores in the hope of a bright future.

Driss is a jack-of-all trades type who sells fish from his car and moves furniture from one end of his hometown Tangiers to the other. His girlfriend is a free-spirited and wealthy European lass who runs an antique shop. One day, Driss becomes fascinated with Fouad, an old man who runs a rundown café by the beach. Fouad disdains his fellow Moroccans, calling them lazy, preferring the company of Europeans -- particularly, as Driss later learns -- young European women. Always on the make, Driss offers Fouad a business proposition -- to revamp his establishment and turn it into a proper restaurant with Driss as his business partner. He is later shocked and hurt to learn that Fouad starts to remodel his business but without Driss. Sending out his friends as spies, Driss learns a number of unsettling things about his would-be associate.

Alessandro D'Alatri directed this Italian drama about Jesus Christ, covering his childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood, an 18-year span not chronicled in the Bible. The film uses names of the period instead of names given in the Bible. The adult Jeoshua (Kim Rossi Stuart) reflects on past events -- his journey into the desert, baptism, acceptance into the Essenes' community, Jewish life in Galilee, his yeshiva studies, education from his father Josef (Omar Chenbod), and his spiritual growth. After seeing slavery, crucifixions, the stoning of an adulteress, and brutal Roman soldiers, Jeoshua turns to God for answers, leaves the village, and is betrayed by his friend Aziz (Said Taghmaoui), who leaves him to die in the desert. Issues such as carnality bring Jeoshua in conflict with the Essenes, yet he speaks out on behalf of the Essene David (popular Italian singer Lorenzo Cherubini).

David, now an old man, is still king of Israel. Among his sons, the ambitious Adonijah and the clever Solomon, fierce rivals, since both are prospective heirs to the throne and only one can be.