Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche

Kamel, a young man from the french ghetto, near Paris, is coming back to France. He was arrested for dealing drugs, he spent five years in jail and was banned from France for two years. He tries, with his family's support, to find a job and live a normal life. But nothing's normal in the ghetto.

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 man ascends a barren summit. It is Judas, come to collect Jesus and carry him down the mountain on his back, joking and panting as he does so. After bathing in the river and taking part in a henna ceremony, Jesus leaves for Jerusalem. Judas is concerned for his friend’s safety, since the Roman occupiers look upon the prophet as an insurgent.

Hardly freed from a French prison, Kamel is deported in his native state, Algeria, and discovers a country split between modernity and tradition.

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.