A team of filmmakers in search of a theme asks young residents of Casablanca about their expectations and their relationship to Moroccan cinema. When they witness a crime committed by an unsatisfied dock worker who accidentally kills his boss, they are interested in this particular case. The investigation of the motifs will encourage them to rethink their conception of cinema and the role of the artist in society.
In the vast expanse of desert East of Atlas Mountains in Morocco, seasonal rain and snow once supported livestock, but now the drought seems to never end. Hardly a blade of grass can be seen, and families travel miles on foot to get water from a muddy hole in the ground. Yet the children willingly ride donkeys and bicycles or walk for miles across rocks to a "school of hope" built of clay. Following both the students and the teachers in the Oulad Boukais Tribe's community school for over three years, School of Hope shows students Mohamed, Miloud, Fatima, and their classmates, responding with childish glee to the school's altruistic young teacher, Mohamed. Each child faces individual obstacles - supporting their aging parents; avoiding restrictions from relatives based on traditional gender roles - while their young teacher makes do in a house with no electricity or water.
Ali, a self-made middle-class businessman, finds himself torn between two loves: The woman he's about to marry and his old flame who barges back into his life. What will his heart dictate.