A LIBERATING MOROCCAN HIP-HOP IN « HAUT ET FORT »

With « Haut et Fort« , selected at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, Nabil Ayouch returns with a seventh feature film in which he devotes himself to hip-hop as a vector of emancipation. In what he says is his « most autobiographical » film, the Franco-Moroccan director returned to a cultural center he created himself in Sidi Moumen, a district of Casablanca. With « Haut et fort », the Franco-Moroccan filmmaker signs his most autobiographical film. He tells the story of emancipation through rap and hip hop in the cultural center he created in a Casablanca slum, inspired by the MJC of his childhood in the Paris suburbs.

Sidi Moumen is a district marked with a hot iron. This Casablanca slum is not only one of the poorest in Morocco, but also the cradle of suicide bombers in the attacks that bloodied the country’s economic capital in 2003 and highlighted the scourge of religious radicalism (32 dead, around 100 wounded). Franco-Moroccan filmmaker Nabil Ayouch knows him well. Ten years ago, he shot Les Chevaux de Dieu, which traces the slide of a disinherited youth into fanatic terrorism, a film based on the novel by his friend the Moroccan painter and writer Mahi Binebine, Les Étoiles de Sidi Moumen.

Since then, the director has taken root in the neighborhood by creating a cultural center dedicated to young people, Les Étoiles de Sidi Moumen, through his foundation, Ali Zaoua. Nabil Ayouch was inspired by his own story. Raised in the concrete of Sarcelles, in the Paris region, it owes its salvation to the house of young people and culture (MJC), the Cholletes Forum . Ten years later, he recorded this social experiment in a film currently in theaters in Morocco and France: Haut et fort. The story of a gang of young people who struggle and liberate themselves « with [their] mouth », performing rap and slam in an unexpected agora, a cultural center in the heart of Sidi Moumen, in oppressive Morocco.

Sandrine Ndoumbe