Synopsis
“This is life, a ray of light which ends in the night”
L.-F. Céline
Somewhere else,
In a colourless country,
Where people are upside down
Where water is touched by a strange phenomenon leaving “water bugs” which contaminate
everything
A world where homosexuality is a transgression
In this ramshackle world, between fantasy and fantastic, lives a man, Tarik.
Tarik wears make up and dresses himself as a woman. He dances on a cart drawn by a dying horse
and a father who doesn’t watch him anymore. He dances to the sound of a brass band composed of
poor wretches, outcasts, punks, with or without dogs, and misfits who are filled with inertia. Followed
by the crowd, Tarik vibrates with feminine sensuality, abandoning himself to this passion, his face
barred by a moustache claiming his truncated manhood.
Because Tarik is a H’Dya artist. He dresses up as a woman and dances for money during festivals or
engagement or wedding ceremonies. H’Dya: a Moroccan tradition close to fun fairs, which for years,
gave rhythm to festivities and the daily life of Moroccans, before disappearing under the influence of
the conservatism that gnaws Moroccan society, like many other Arab societies.
In the intricacies of a decaying city where man is like any other animal, Tarik wraps himself in his
silence and passivity. A man with undefined contours, victim of urban violence. Violence,
indifference, judgment and intolerance. Everybody thinking he is gay, he is regularly beaten up by a
poverty-stricken fearful and aggressive population. A victim of the world and of himself. A victim of a
past that haunts him and of a present that does him violence. Under the weight of a loss he cannot
accept. Tarik is essentially a victim of his incapacity to choose; he lets himself be crossed by the
madness of a world that is crumbling.
Everything starts the day when Larbi, the horse, stops in the middle of a procession and refuses to
go a step further. The old age of the horse condemns the H’Dya workers and marks the end of the
family business. Tarik and musicians find themselves at loose ends, while the father, who only has
affection for his horse, plunges himself into despair. Tarik whose eyes are dry, has to watch his
father who cries like a fountain, forcing him to face his lack of feelings, his inability to come to terms
with his own loss and with the terrible and enigmatic tragedy that ruined his life a few years
previously.
Tarik, idler than ever, confronted to the coldness of his father and the insanity of the world, comes
across the man who stole his life, his wife and children from him. An encounter where the torturer is
also a victim… His past hits him in the face and this is the beginning of his journey… A terrible quest,
where he will have to face his pain, to accept his loss and to overcome his silence in order to move
on.
Between shadow and light, in a monochromatic world, Tarik will have to learn to live again and let
colours take him away from madness, away from the dullness o