Feature movie directed by Nabil Ayouch - 1997-1998

Coproduction Morocco (Ali n' Productions) - France (Playtime)

• "Official Moroccan Selection to the 1998 Oscars"

• More than 350 000 tickets sold in Morocco

• Best Arab Film award and Best First Work award at the International Film Festival of Cairo

• Special Jury Selection award at Oslo

• Selection in about thirty international festivals (Berlin, Rotterdam, Gant...)

The film is drawn from a real life fact that made the news in Morocco back in the middle of the nineties: The case of "Tabet, the chief of police."

Summary :

After living in the United States for ten years, Taoufik Raoui, a brilliant and carefree young doctor from Casablanca, moves back to Morocco where he plans to run his own practice.

He once had to attend an ophthalmology conference at Tangier and decided to take along his young wife Sophia so that they celebrate their one-year wedding anniversary at once.

Taoufik is almost unconscious after drinking too much champagne, offered by the hotel manager for the occasion. While his wife goes looking for a night doctor, mysterious kidnappers abduct her. Sophia will later be raped while filmed and then abandoned on the streets of Tangier.

Taoufik goes back to the scene of the crime, views the tape and ends up killing a man following a fight. When the couple decides to surrender to the police, they learn about the true identity of the victim who happens to be a chief of police and former hero of the Resistance, implied in a series of rapes. Taoufik and Sophia will have to run away. It is Kamel, Taoufik's brother, a disillusioned and nihilist cop, who will save them.

The young couple is then being chased by an inspector assigned to find the tape of the rape, which proves the implication of significant figures. The chase will take the form of a crossing throughout Morocco and will allow the two heroes to have a true redefinition of their relationship.

Height of page