Hajar Bali, the joyful rebels of Algiers

Algeria, 2010s. In a country weighed down by an inward-looking political power and its oil revenues, young people are dying of impossible dreams, torn between the weight of tradition and desires for something else, but what? In Algiers, Wafa and Adel are madly in love. At 17 and 20, they lack the money to leave their families and escape the prevailing conformity, to build a less miserable life than the one they've been promised. They're rebels, but joyful rebels; life will be theirs if they find a way out. So they decide to rob a little old lady. And they quickly find a rare gem returning from the market. "This one, what's more, is pretty," Wafa muses, as Hajar Bali writes. "Comfortable earrings and shoes. We thought, she must be rich." She has white hair, styled, in short, a distinguished look, a bit like an old French woman." They follow her to her apartment, gag and tie her up, leave her unconscious on her bed and leave with a few miserable bills.

Except Wafa isn't a bad girl. Consumed by guilt at possibly having killed this poor woman, she returns with Adel to the apartment. And there, the two teenagers come face to face with the victim's son, Slim. A strange guy, also lost, in his forties. A philosophy professor at the university, he has just resigned ( "I no longer found any pleasure in giving my classes to idiots