Horses of God

(115 minutes) These are street kids from poor families where everyday violence, mental illness, corruption, and dope-dealing compete with fantasies of escaping to Western Europe to earn scads of money or dreams of making it as a professional soccer player. They are subject to the lure of religious fanatics who blame their misfortune on "the imperialist Zionist conspiracy" and offer a "community of new brothers" to those who will submit to the discipline of martyrdom. Nabil Ayouch's deeply moving film has been lauded for its "brutal poetry" and the realism with which it depicts how insidiously and cynically fundamentalists ply their trade. The film was presented as part of Un Certain Regard at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.