Marrakech: Gangster Western ‘The Last Beast of Atlas’ to Be Launched by Walid Messnaoui, Caestus Films (EXCLUSIVE)

variety.com:

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent Having made a splash with tense and brutal petty crime caper short “No Key,” an Indie Short Fest winner that also screened at Fantastic Fest, Casablanca-born director Walid Messnaoui and fast-building Moroccan production house Caestus Films are preparing Messnaoiu’s first feature, “The Last Beast of Atlas,” described as a twilight Western and drama. “The Last Beast” rates as one of the buzzy debuts to be presented at the Marrakech Film Festival’s Atlas Workshops, which promises a dazzling array of titles from usually young talent from Africa and the Arab World which embrace a huge variety of genres. “The Last Beast” is a prominent example.

Produced by Caestus Films founders Taoufik Rais and El Mahdi Amsrouy, “The Last Beast of Atlas” is set in the heart of the Middle Atlas in the 1990s.

It turns on Boulohouch, a legendary outlaw who leading a band of rebels, becomes a symbol of freedom and terror. “But as the myth begins to crumble, the man behind the legend is revealed, blurring the line between hero and villain in a Morocco torn between ancient traditions and the dawn of a new millennium,” the synopsis runs. “The Last Beast of Atlas’ deconstructs the myth of Boulohouch, a legendary hunter who truly existed and became the leader of Morocco’s most infamous outlaw gang in the Middle Atlas in the 1990s,” producers Rais and Amsrouy told Variety. “Revered by some as a Robin Hood figure and feared by others as a ruthless bandit, Boulohouch embodies the complex duality of heroism and villainy.

The film explores how societies build their heroes – only to tear them down,” they added. The movie is written by Smail Mojahid, a screenwriter and professor of screenwriting at the ISMAC.