Selected for the Filmmakers’ Fortnight at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival and doubly awarded at the Mostra de Valence (best actors and best director), the sixth film by director, screenwriter and actor Faouzi Bensaïdi finally arrives in Moroccan theaters on May 15.
The feature film tells the story of Mehdi and Hamid, two long-time friends who work for a collection agency in Casablanca. They are sent to distant villages in the Moroccan south to extract money from over-indebted families…
Shot in 2021 in the Marrakech region, the film stars the duo Fehd Benchemsi and Abdelhadi Taleb, and brings together a range of actors, including Rabii Benjhaile, Hajar Graigaa, Mohamed Choubi, Nezha Rahil, Abdelghani Sannak, Nordine Saaden, Mohamed Hmimsa, Brahim Khai, Zhor Slimani and Abdellah Chicha.
“The different chapters of the film collide the values, traditions and humanity of the old with the brutality of the new. The border is porous, uncertain. A mystery hovers, the characters and stories become entangled. I see the film as a round, because the story is made up of ruptures, displacements and roads traveled at full speed », Notes Faouzi Bensaïdi, quoted in a press release from the production.
Read also: The film “Déserts”, by Faouzi Bensaïdi, awarded at the Valencia Film Festival
“With Déserts, I wanted one story and its setting to gradually slip away in favor of another and to leave ample room for the viewer’s imagination. Burlesque could be tinged with film noir, social with suspense, and reality, welcoming abstraction, could open onto the cosmic», he continues.
By Le360 (with MAP)
05/05/2024 at 9:57 a.m.
