Horses of God

Nabil Ayouch's film follows two brothers growing up in the Sidi Moumen shantytown on the edge of Casablanca across a decade. They begin as children playing football, stealing, killing time in the street, and the film builds their radicalisation step by step, showing that it cannot be reduced to a single cause. Poverty, unemployment, police violence, prison and the religious network moving into the neighbourhood stack on top of each other. Adapted from Mahi Binebine's novel about the young men of Sidi Moumen, it draws on the suicide bombings of 16 May 2003 in Casablanca, the deadliest attack in Moroccan history. Ayouch neither turns the bombers into monsters nor excuses them, and because we have known them since childhood the ending weighs more. It screened at Cannes and was Morocco's Oscar submission. Who it's for: viewers looking for films that examine the social roots of radicalisation. Who it's not for: anyone who cannot carry the weight of watching while already knowing where the violence goes.