Ali Zaoua (Morocco, 1999)

This is the story of four street urchins who are just trying to survive the harsh streets of Casablanca. At the beginning of the film, one of the friends is killed by a rival gang. The rest of the movie follows the three remaining boys as they struggle to deal with their friend's death.

I'm not sure if I liked this film or not. On the surface, the acting was mediocre, the story like many others, the scenery unengaging. Yet at the end of the film I found myself wanting to know more.

Several of the boys in the film seemed to be real street children. They had very real-looking scars on their faces. They smoked like they've been doing it for years. They had a sadness in their eyes that cannot be faked.

After a Google search, I found out that many of them were indeed real kids living on the streets of Casablanca, recruited by the film maker for this movie. That explains the unremarkable acting, but begs the questions: What is their real story? How did they get those horrific scars? Which ones were actors & which ones lived the tale daily?

Ali Zaoua on IMDb