Arabic
FranceMorocco
Amine steals a big bag of money and escapes into the hills with the police hot on his trail. Before he is arrested, he digs a grave to bury the cash and disguises it as a modest tomb. Years later, Amine is released from prison and sets off to find his money. In the meantime, a religious shrine has been built directly over the place he buried his cash. The mausoleum honors an unknown saint from the region whose tomb was recently discovered. Down the hill from the resting place of the "The Unknown Saint", a new village subsists on the pilgrims who travel from far and wide to visit the mausoleum. Amine settles into the village and begins plotting a way in. But with the loot now hidden in a holy place, retrieving it suddenly becomes much more complicated.
This quirky and inspiring burlesque fable dives into the new Moroccan cinema and its most promising talents. Through a refined yet funny staging, the director Alaa Eddine Aljem marvellously practices the art of self-deprecation. He implicitly denounces ideological obscurantism and mercantilism. We find ourselves swimming somewhere between Tati, Charlie Chaplin, Elia Suleiman, Aki Kaurismäki and the Coen brothers: a very enjoyable film!