Moroccan Director Hicham Lasri Talks About ‘Moroccan Badass Girl,’ ‘Happy Lovers,’ Black Comedies Centering on Antiheroes

variety.com:

Martin Dale Contributor Moroccan director Hicham Lasri (“The End,” “Headbang Lullaby”) is presenting the world premiere of his seventh feature film, “Moroccan Badass Girl,” at the Marrakech Film Festival, and also participating in the Atlas Workshops with “Happy Lovers.” He describes both as dark comedies about antiheroes in the Arab world, “a bit in the vein of the Coen brothers.” “Moroccan Badass Girl,” starring Fadoua Taleb, is a contemporary low-budget pic about a headstrong, unpredictable young Moroccan woman in Casablanca. “Happy Lovers” features a clumsy French writer who accepts a mission to kill a well-known author, with a fatwa on his head.

Both projects mark a major change from Lasri’s previous six feature films, which have all been set in Morocco in the 1980s, at the end of the so-called “Years of Lead,” during the reign of King Hassan II. “Moroccan Badass Girl” is produced by Lasri through S.A.

Prod., with sales handled by MAD Solutions. “Happy Lovers” is produced by Lamia Chraibi at La Prod, and is coproduced with her French production company Moon a Deal Films and Philippe Gompel’s Manny Films.

Chraibi has produced all Lasri’s main projects to date and is also prepping a pan-Arab supernatural series “Meskoun” with him.