QUAND LES HOMMES PLEURENT …

Yasmine Kassari
Belgium 1999 | 57 Min. | BetaSP, OmeU

Every year, thirty thou­sand Moroc­cans cross the Straits of Gibral­tar in small makeshift boats. Four­teen thou­sand of them are sent back. One thou­sand drown. About fif­teen thou­sand of them make it. Yas­mine Kas­sari tries to describe the often broken lives of the people behind these cold sta­tis­tics. Kacem, Mziane, Abder­rah­man, and Hassan risked their lives in the hope of improv­ing their every­day exis­tence. Today they expe­ri­ence noth­ing but despair, and their pover­ty is inverse­ly pro­por­tion­al to the dream of com­fort and pros­per­i­tiy which is pro­mul­gat­ed by media and their fellow coun­try­men who did not want to lose face when they 63 returned to their homeland.