Salim Ameur-Zaïmeche

In a Mediterranean country plunging into armed conflict, a doctor tries to do his duty against all odds, until the day his destiny is turned upside down…

Slimane, an old, weary, and sick trucker, and Smaïn, his loader, are tasked with transporting a cargo deep into the Algerian Sahara. Along the way, they are violently attacked and their truck is stolen. When Anna, a young French researcher, and Sofiane, her traveling companion, come to their aid, the film plunges with them into the desert.

Early on in this engaging historical drama, a marquis (played by the singularly droll Jacques Nolot) offers a peddler a carriage ride on a remote country road. After sizing up his benefactor, the peddler fights motion sickness to deliver his sales pitch: “I have here a few objects of wonder, pious images, pamphlets against men of the cloth, newspapers from Amsterdam and London, holy cards, quills, writing paper…”

A retired military man lives in the Temple Woods housing project. Just as he’s burying his mother, his neighbour Bébé, who belongs to a gang of robbers from the area, is preparing to rob the convoy of a wealthy Arab prince.

Talk of living wages and religious observances upsets the delicate accord between the boss of a run-down truck yard and his workers in this visually arresting take on the French-Algerian immigrant experience.