A Summer in Boujad

Seven years after the death of his mother, 13-year-old Karim has left Paris for Morocco with his father Messaoud, who has remarried and decided to return to his homeland. After a year at a French boarding school in Casablanca, Karim joins the newly blended family – including his new half-brother, stepmother and his father’s mother-in-law – for the summer in Boujad, a small town in central Morocco. Already muddled by the anxieties of adolescence, Karim struggles to understand their world and establish his place in a family of strangers. Meanwhile, his father – having discovered how little he really knows about Morocco after decades in France – is finding it difficult to adjust and even more challenging to relate to a boy beginning to show signs of rebellion. Their tumultuous relationship is at the heart of director Omar Mouldouira’s personal story, tenderly told, which encourages us to reflect on our own family bonds.