EXCLUSIVE: Deadline can reveal the trailer for ensemble drama Backstage, about a contemporary dance troupe that got lost in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains, ahead of its world premiere in Venice parallel section Giornate degli Autori.
Wife and husband team Afef Ben Mahmoud and Khalil Benkirane take co-director credits and also lead produce under their respective banners of Mesanges Films and Lycia Productions.
The cast, mixing actors and contemporary dancers is led by Tunisian-born Ben Mahmoud as a dancer who is injured by her life and stage partner (played by award-winning Belgian choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui) during a performance in a village in the Atlas Mountains.
The incident triggers a series of events as the troupe gets lost in an forest as they try to make their way to the next village in the dead of night.
Ben Mahmoud, says the film was born out of her own past experiences of being part of dance and theatre troupes.
“As a professional dancer, at the beginning of my career and then as an actress, from stage to stage, from one country to another, I was lucky enough to have several families. Travelling together, eating, sleeping, crying, laughing… Unforgettable moments of life that marked me forever,” she says.
“The bonds that are woven in this environment are sometimes more intense than those that one can have with one’s own family. They are those of a chosen family and are associated with a profession that can only come from a passion, of a way of being in its own right.”
Another aspect of the film is its exploration of the body through dance, which in turn touches on taboo subjects in the Arab world such as female sexuality.
“The question of female sexuality is more topical than ever in the region. A woman continues to be seen as the one who can give birth; a being, a body, dictated by a biological clock. Her choices are restricted to following this ‘natural order,” explains Ben Mahmoud.
“To counter this, it is fundamental to us to represent women who are simply trying to be free, and to understand them as such.”
Other members of the cast include Palestinian actor Saleh Bakri, who is a member of this year’s main Venice jury led by Damien Chazelle; Tunisian artists Sondos Belhassen and Sofiane Ouissi, as well French and Moroccan dancer, choreographer and actress Hajiba Fahmy, whose recent credits include Mounia Meddour’s Houria.
The production has the backing of a number of key players in the Arab world’s indie scene, including Mohamed Hefzy’s Cairo-based company Film Clinic, the Doha Film Institute and Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Film Fund.
Tunisian-born actress Ben Mahmoud previous acting credits Nouri Bouzid’s Making Of and lately in Streams by Mehdi Hmili, while her producer credits with Benkirane include Bouzid’s The Scarecrow, in which she also appeared.
As well as being an experienced producer in his own right, Moroccan-born Benkirane is also known as the Head Of Grants at the DFI.
