Connections and personality: France and Morocco, sisters, mothers and sons, husbands and lovers. Antoine arranges a job in Tangiers so he can reconnect to Cécile, his first love, unseen for 30 years. Sami, her son, comes from Paris with his friend Nadia and her son to see his mother and his Moroccan boyfriend. Nadia wants to see Aïcha, her twin, a devout Muslim unwilling to see her pill-popping sister. Antoine harbors romantic fantasies; Cécile lives in the real world of an empty marriage to Natan, a Jewish doctor who’s broke, drinks too much, and wants to move back to Casablanca. Cécile is a follower. Dogs and mud present dangers, as does complaisance. Will the earth move? —IMDb
A critic with the Cahiers du Cinéma in the 60s, he made his directing debut with Paulina s’en va, his first feature, shown at the Fortnight in 1969. He returned to the Fortnight in 1975 with Souvenirs d’en France. Reputed for his work with actors, he has directed the likes of Isabelle Adjani, Catherine Deneuve, Jeanne Moreau, Juliette Binoche, Isabelle Huppert, Gérard Depardieu, Michel Blanc, Daniel Auteuil… He won several awards at Venice and Cannes and received three Césars in 1995 for Les roseaux sauvages. –Quinzaine des Réalisateurs