The first clapperboard is set to slam on Kamal Lazraq’s debut feature film Hounds [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Kamal Lazraq
scheda film] on 10 October. A graduate of La Fémis who’s previously turned heads with his short films (winning Cinéfondation’s second prize at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival via Drari and selected for Clermont-Ferrand’s international competition in 2015 thanks to The Man With a Dog), the director is entrusting the two lead roles in his new opus to Ayoub Elaid and Abdellatif Masstouri.

Written by Kamal Lazraq himself, the story thrusts us into the working-class suburbs of Casablanca where Hassan and Issam, father and son, are trying to get by day-to-day by way of petty crime or jobs for the local mob. But one night, they’re asked to kidnap a man…

Hounds is produced by Saïd Hamich Benlarbi on behalf of Barney Production, in co-production with Moroccan firm Mont Fleuri Production and Belgian outfit Beluga Tree (Diana Elbaum). Supported by the CNC’s Aide aux Cinémas du Monde fund, the Institut Français, the Gan Film Foundation, the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie’s Film Fund for French-Language Films, the Doha Film Institute, the AFAC (Arab Fund For Arts And Culture), the Wallonia Brussels Fund and via an advance on receipts from the Moroccan Film Centre, this feature film (awarded the ArteKino Prize at the 2019 Marrakech-based Atlas Workshops) will be shot in Casablanca and its surrounds over the course of 6 weeks from 10 October to 18 November, with Amine Berrada (The Unknown Saint [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
scheda film], The World After Us [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Louda Ben Salah-Cazanas
scheda film]) heading up photography. Distribution in French cinemas will be steered by Ad Vitam and international sales by Charades.

For the record, Barney Production are due to release Slamlord [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
scheda film] by Steve Achiepo in French cinemas on 8 February next year, and are currently overseeing post-production on Faouzi Bensaïdi’s Deserts [+leggi anche:
recensione
intervista: Faouzi Bensaïdi
scheda film]. The Parisian firm also recently co-produced Harkis [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Philippe Faucon
scheda film] by Philippe Faucon (screened in this year’s Directors’ Fortnight and released in France next week, on 12 October).