Eight-year-old Leo and Lea live in a caravan in an industrial area. Their parents, no longer able to feed them and forced to leave their home which they can no longer afford, decide to abandon them. Thus begins a strange and terrible adventure for the two children.

Four hardened crooks break out of prison. Hunted down, with nowhere to run, they seek refuge in the only place the police cannot follow, a Cistercian monastery. Cut off from the outside world, a nightmare stand off develops between the fugitives, ready to kill in defence of their dearly purchased freedom, and the monks they' re holding hostage. But in this potentially lethal confrontation, nothing is quite as it seems. The game' s been rigged from the start. Requiem' s a violent and fast paced French film that really delivers.