As part of the 22nd edition of the FNF of Tangier
Familiar with the Tangier film scene, Moroccan director Nabil Ayouch is participating for the ninth time in the Tangier National Film Festival (FNF this time with his new film “Haut et fort”, which is among the 28 feature films in official competition at this festival, which is in its twenty-second edition and which continues until September 24. “It is with great emotion that I return to Tangier and find the public, the friends and the atmosphere of the festival. It is also a great experience for me as a director to see all these people come from all the cities of Morocco: Rabat, Casablanca, Agadir,…, to attend the screening of the film,” said Nabil Ayouch.
Co-written by the Franco-Moroccan director and Maryam Touzani, the screenplay of “Haut et fort” (over 100 minutes long) shows how to help young people from a working-class neighborhood in Casablanca to shed the weight of certain traditions. and develop their passion for hip hop so they can express themselves and get their messages across. “It’s a different way of talking about the reality of this district and of seeing the beautiful and positive side of its youth”, confided Nabil Ayouch, noting that the idea is to “tend a perch to this youth where it is there to allow him to express himself and tell his story so that others do not come to tell it in his place”.
The Franco-Moroccan director was somehow inspired by his childhood spent in Sarcelles, where he learned to love the arts and developed his passion at the Maison des jeunes et de la culture (MJC). Given the importance of cultural centers in the development and development of young talents, Nabil Ayouch was at the origin of that of Sidi Moumen, whose young people who have registered have been able, thanks to art, to reconcile with themselves. same. “I saw young people who entered this center lost and left with a purpose in life,” said the director, who continues to maintain ties with young people from Sidi Moumen after filming his two feature films. -films “Ali Zaoua” and “The Horses of God” filmed respectively in 2001 and 2012 in this popular district.
In “Haut et fort”, everything begins when young Anas, played by Anas Basboussi, is assigned to the new cultural center in a popular district of Casablanca. A former rapper, he tries to transmit his passion to the young people of this center and to give them the strength and self-confidence to be able to express themselves through hip hop.
It should be noted that chaired by Driss Anouar, the jury of the feature film competition of the twenty-second FNF of Tangier, which is also composed of Lahcen Zinoun, director and choreographer, Touria Majdouline, writer and poet, Mohamed Tarrous, academic and film critic, Bilal Marmid, journalist and film critic, Bouchra Boulouiz, writer and Belaïd El Akkaf, musicologist and composer, will have to choose between 28 films produced between 2020 and 2022. The program for this edition is also distinguished by two other competitions from short films (50 films) and feature length documentaries (27 films).
