Director Nabil Ayouch spoke of the real story behind Morocco’s Oscar submission Casablanca Beats, a musical drama about a teacher at a cultural center in the Moroccan city.“It is personal and autobiographical in a way,” he said during Kino Lorber’s panel at Deadline’s Contenders Film: International awards-season event. “I grew up in a suburb of Paris that was quite violent and very close to the one that we see in the film in Casablanca.
And when I was young, I knew how to love myself and connect with myself through arts and culture: specifically a cultural center.
And later on, when I became a director, thanks to that center, after a film that I made called Horses of God, I decided to build up the center in the suburb of Casablanca.”Ayouch
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