Earth and Blood 2020

During a tense heist at a police station’s evidence room, two of the four criminals are killed, and the remaining pair escapes with eight kilos of cocaine, setting off a dangerous chain of loyalties and betrayals that will ripple through a family and a community on edge.

The sawmill owner Sami Bouajila Saïd receives a brutal personal blow when a CT scan reveals he has carcinoma and not long to live. The diagnosis sharpens his focus on the life he wants to secure for his family, even as danger crowds in from every side. He visits his sister-in-law, Carole Weyers as Catherine Duval, to lay out plans to sell the sawmill — a property that had belonged to her father — and to assure her she’ll get her rightful share. The conversation drifts toward his teenage daughter Sarah, a bright but speech- and hearing-impaired young woman, and Saïd talks about using the money from the sale to fund her postsecondary studies. The weight of his illness and the pressure of his finances fuse into a decision to do whatever it takes to protect his family from the fallout of the heist.

Meanwhile, Yanis, a paroled employee who has earned his second chance, crosses paths with his half-brother and one of the surviving criminals. Yanis becomes entangled in a plan to keep the stolen drugs out of the hands of the brutal drug lord Adama, Ériq Ebouaney as Adama, and the story spirals toward the sawmill where Saïd keeps his livelihood. Under pressure, Yanis agrees to stash the drugs at the sawmill, and in a tense twist of trust, he swaps cars with his half-brother, moving the cocaine into Saïd’s world. The dangerous math of risk and loyalty circles back to Saïd as he navigates an increasingly precarious web of choices.

As Saïd arranges a viewing with a potential buyer for the sawmill, the atmosphere thickens with uncertainty. The man who controls the cocaine’s fate is furious, and Adama knows that the clock is ticking on any chance to recover what was stolen. In a brutal coda of violence, Adama’s brother Moussa arrives with a gun, only to fall to Saïd’s quick reflexes when Moussa threatens Yanis and Sarah. The toll of the night lands squarely on the trio: Saïd must decide whether to save Yanis and Sarah or to let a dangerous feud swallow them all.

With Yanis in tow and the drugs still hidden at the sawmill, Saïd locks Yanis inside the premises and drills a strategy into his head: protect Sarah at all costs, and draw the drug lord away from the girl. He tells Sarah to stay indoors as he heads out with a shotgun, hoping to buy time and keep the criminals at bay. The gang quickly closes in, and Saïd triggers a series of traps, turning the sawmill into a deadly labyrinth where steel and wood become weapons. He fights through a swarm of attackers, and even as the fires rise, he uses a heavy log-loading vehicle to break free, driving with ferocious momentum into the woods.

In the chase that follows, a car pursuit becomes a brutal test of nerve and strength. Saïd leverages the weight and power of the sawmill vehicle to topple a rival car and wipe out a member of Adama’s crew, a moment that underscores the terrifying ingenuity of a man who is fighting for his family and his life in equal measure. Yanis and Sarah, meanwhile, press on through the woods, fleeing a ruthless henchman who is determined to end them. They find a moment of shelter in a shed, but the danger remains close behind.

The situation escalates when Yanis is stabbed while trying to protect Sarah in their shelter, and the bond between Saïd and the frightened pair grows even tighter as Saïd rushes to help. He incapacitates the pursuing henchman, but Yanis dies in Saïd’s arms, a painful blow that steels Saïd’s resolve and sharpens his focus on the final showdown. Adama and another henchman soon arrive, and Saïd uses a clever distraction by tying up the captor to misdirect their attention, killing the intruder but leaving him stunned as Adama returns fire and wounds him severely.

Pinned down, Adama holds Saïd at gunpoint and reveals a chilling motive: vengeance for his brother’s death, with Sarah squarely in his sights. He abandons the wounded Saïd in a shed and heads toward the farmhouse where Sarah had earlier sought help. An old man who aided Sarah is shot by Adama in the farmhouse, and the desperate chase culminates when Sarah, cornered on an upper floor, leaps from the building to escape. Adama captures her, lifts his pistol, and—before he can strike—Saïd reappears and ends him with an axe.

As the dust settles, Saïd collapses, and Sarah cradles him while a police helicopter hovers overhead, signaling a fragile end to a night of violence that tested a family’s love, a community’s boundaries, and a man’s will to protect what mattered most. The sawmill’s secrets have been exposed, the drug lord’s wrath deflected, and a life saved at the cost of another. In the quiet that follows, the bond between father and daughter—tempered by fear, sharpened by courage—remains the last, enduring light.