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"Stealing money is okay for me. But profaning a saint's tomb, is too much." The Match Factory released an official promo trailer for the indie comedy The Unknown Saint, from Moroccan filmmaker Alaa Eddine Aljem. This premiered in the Critics Week section at the Cannes Film Festival last year, and earned a few rave reviews from critics before stopping by a few other festivals. This Coen Brothers-esque dark comedy is about a thief who buries money on top of a hill fleeing the police. When he returns years later, he discovers a mausoleum built where it's buried and moves to the town nearby to try and figure out how to get his bounty back. Starring Younes Bouab, with Salah Ben Saleh, Bouchaib Semmak, Mohammed Nouaimane, Anas El Baz, Abdelghani Kitab, Hassan Ben Badida, and Ahmed Yarziz. This is an entirely original, very clever comedy from Morocco - not something we see that often.

Beautifully shot and ideally cast, debuting Moroccan writer-director Alaa Eddine Aliem’s “The Unknown Saint” is a droll, entertaining, absurdist fable about spirituality and greed that signals an important new talent. The events unfold near a derelict desert village, where, in a pre-title prologue, a thief buries a bag of loot on top of a hill, disguising the spot as a grave. Years later, when he returns to retrieve his booty, he is astonished and frustrated to find that a mausoleum honoring an “unknown saint” credited with performing healing miracles now covers the site. Moreover, a new village has sprung up nearby to service the pilgrims that the shrine attracts. Aliem manages to reap much fresh humor from this situation and a spritely cast of eccentric characters.

The story of the stymied thief (Younes Bouab) and his former accomplice, the sarcastically-styled Ahmed the Brain, plays out in parallel to, and overlaps with,...