A young Moroccan guy drowns while trying to reach the Spanish coast in a "Patera" (small boat). His sister (that works legally in Spain) wants to take his body back to their hometown, Hansala, a small bereber village in Atlas mountains. The owner of the morgue offers to help in exchange for 3000 euros and both start a trip by van to Hansala. The Spaniard will live some days of profound experiences there...
I would describe the film as a "sweet drama". What I mean with this is that the story already starts in a terribly dramatic way (a view of the "promised coast" from the eyes of someone that is being swallowed by the waters), but though many other terrible experiences add to it as the story evolves, some positive things also happen that end up equilibrating the emotional balance.
Unfortunately, the real story that inspired this film is quite more tough, although some ONGs have been helping for sometime trying to redress the situation(please, click on the ONG link to know more about this sad story). A smallboat packed of "illegal" inmigrants sinks while crossing the strait. Eleven of the poor people there came from the same small place, Hansala. Shit, can you imagine the excruciating pain that had to devastate their village... The owner of the morgue starts a trip to Morocco...
While the film was in postproduction I attended a related exhibition in MUSAC that if well I liked a lot, laid forgotten in some corner of my mind until this night. There was a video installation there, "El Retorno" (2004) that set the basis for the first sequence of the film.
All in all, I absolutely recommend this film, specially for those (like me) that due to crime rates, fanatic Islam and Western Sahara bloody occupation by the Fascist State of Morocco feel a certain level of antipathy for Moroccan "visitors".
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