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LES MEUTES Premieres at the 22nd FICM

Omar Sosa

As part of the 22nd Morelia International Film Festival (FICM), Moroccan screenwriter and director Kamal Lazraq presented his debut feature Les meutes (2023).

The feature film is one of the international premieres of this year's edition. Also in attendance at the screening were Daniela Michel, founder and director of the festival, and Anne Delseth, programmer of the Marrakech International Film Festival (FIFM).

Anne Delseth thanked the festival for the invitation and talked about the similarities she perceives between FICM and FIFM: “We are already 21 years old, almost 22, and we are dedicated to discovering artists and new talents, so we have a very similar mission to that of the Morelia festival." Les meutes (2023) won the Un Certain Regard jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival, the Golden Anchor for best debut film at the Haifa International Film Festival and the award for best screenplay at the Stockholm Film Festival.

 “I am very happy to be here to present my film for the first time in Mexico,” commented Kamal Lazraq before the screening of the film. The director warned the audience of the possible cultural and social proximity they would feel with the Moroccan reality portrayed. “I think we live in societies that have such a frenetic pace that they sometimes leave part of their population on the sidelines,” he added.

This work stems from several previous versions by Lazraq, filmed with non-professional actors from working-class neighborhoods, with the idea of bringing them to the cinema. “The film is very scripted, but at the same time, it has a very documentary side to it. The actors play roles very similar to what they are in real life,” Lazraq said of his work with the actors.

At the end of the screening, the audience was able to enjoy a Q&A with the director. To begin this session, the first question sought to learn more about working with non-professional actors. On this, he commented that for them to feel comfortable he had to devise a method so that the filming would adapt to them, not the other way around, so that their authenticity would not be lost. Something that made the shoot more friendly for the actors was the decision to shoot chronologically, which allowed them to live out the story.

Someone in the audience noted the similarities between Amores Perros (2000, dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu) and Les meutes (2024). Lazraq confirmed that the Mexican film inspired the narrative, but that beyond the obvious references, he sought a Moroccan cinematic language. As for the film's reception, Lazraq admitted that he found it sad that many subtleties in Moroccan Arabic are lost in the film's subtitling, peculiarities that made the film friendlier in Morocco because of the authenticity they convey.