Morocco, Arabic - 114 min
Feature Narrative
Total Budget
US $235,100
Confirmed Financing
US $175,100
Contact
ash.lasri@yahoo.com
+212 665714502
It is the worst day in the life of Khadija, a Casablanca-based woman who’s known for her uncontrollable bursts of anger. She is struggling to survive the post-apocalyptic environment in her hometown.
Khadija is a young woman who’s living in a working class neighborhood in the heart of Casablanca. She is known for her constant uncontrollable anger episodes and verbal outbursts. She will soon be 30 years old, which makes her even more angry and triggers a conflict of self-reflection about her future. When the story begins, she doesn't know that she is going to have the worst day of her life, where she is going to lose her job, her fiancé, her house, her family, her friends, a strange dwarf who gives out free hugs. and has the police on her back. This day, to be marked with a black stone, will redefine her destiny in this post-apocalyptic Casablanca between nightmares and hallucinations.
As in my other films, Morocco is a sick man who undergoes the scrutiny of a scalpel, but this time, we are in a modern Morocco, torn by the weight of an amused third worldism, and of a thwarted modernity. The Morocco described in the film is as hybrid as the film itself with its narration, its filming, its aesthetics, and its sound, which allow it to break the 4th wall shamelessly. This gives the main character a stature that tears her away from the portrait of a female victim in a typical patriarchal society. Luckily, we escape this cliché to nuance the social struggle of this young woman who realizes that she will soon be 30-years-old and that her future is as jammed as the boulevard Zerktouni in Casablanca. This film is a black comedy, sardonic, unapologetic, and dismantling the clichés of Arab cinema on social issues, injecting a corrosive humor that does not shy away from attacking the viewer himself. I always dreamed of making a Spaghetti Western with a female character in the alternative part of Casablanca, and here we go. Moreover, it's a tribute to the Arab, Moroccan, Casablanca woman in the most poetic and meta way without even stooping to make her a victim, nor to sexualize her, nor even to make the man her torturer. It is the first film about Arab stoners and, knowing that Morocco is the first exporter of cannabis in the world, we can say that justice is done.
This film is a self-production that stems from the need to make a film in these COVID-ian times when the whole cinema machine is jammed. This is a film made in the urgency of the "before world" in an alternative mode with my usual team, the usual suspects, who have followed me on most of my cinematographic adventures, with a story that needed urgency, lightness and relevance. Furthermore, the subject was impossible to finance by the Moroccan Cinematographic Center because of its abrasive nature, and also because of the irony of its narrative process that transforms social precariousness into an argument of science fiction, where the streets of Casablanca resemble a mixture of Mad-Max and Alphaville to better tell the journey of this young woman who is left to her own devices. It is also my first film with a female lead; a Casablanca woman.
2019: Cruelty Free by Hicham Lasri
2019: Androides & Zombies by Hicham Lasri
2019: The Last Arab Movie by Hicham Lasri
2018: The Male Gaze by Hicham Lasri
2018: Love In Aleppo by Hicham Lasri
2018: Wasteland by Hicham Lasri
2018: Jahila by Hicham Lasri
2017: Headbang Lullaby by Hicham Lasri
2016: Starve Your Dog by Hicham Lasri
2015: The Sea is Behind by Hicham Lasri
2013: They Are the Dogs by Hicham Lasri
2011: The End by Hicham Lasri