Haut les Mains

A former communist leader and activist for Moroccan independence, Edmond Amran Elmaleh left behind a vast body of literary work that masterfully articulates personal and collective memory. This cinematic letter, addressed to Elmaleh by director Simone Bitton, weaves together excerpts from the writer’s texts, testimonies, and archival images, and the filmmaker’s own words to illustrate the memory of a captivating and erudite man haunted by the parallel tragedies of the departure of Jews from Morocco and the exodus of Palestinians uprooted from their land.

They were children when they left, dreaming of a life without worry: freedom and wealth. But what awaited them was a nightmare. One of them began to change, leading him to commit a lethal knife attack in Turku, Finland. By following the lives of two of the attacker’s friends, the film delves into the experiences of an entire generation of young Moroccan men who feel like they do not belong anywhere. While their families push them to travel to Europe to find a better life, Europe casts them out.

History teacher Julia tries to find a cure for her son Ghassan, who, after being bitten by a rabid dog, slowly transforms into a violent monster.

Alyssa, a rebellious 19 year-old girl, and her friend Mehdi — a shy and introverted 23-year-old young man — who use their imagination to escape their unpromising reality. When they discover a contest in the south of Tunisia that may allow them to flee for real, they decide to undertake the road trip regardless of the obstacles in their way.

In the north of Israel, Nagham, a Palestinian girl, decides to return to Bir’em, her family’s village, which was destroyed during the 1948 Palestinian Nakba. The teenager spends the summer reconnecting with memories of her grandfather.

While men in Morocco are allowed to marry again six months after they have been separated, for women to get divorced is an almost insurmountable bureaucratic undertaking. Ghita, Latifa and Saadia are attempting it nonetheless.