Gregoire Melin’s Kinology, the banner behind “Annette,” has boarded “Queens,” Yasmine Benkiran’s feature debut, which will make its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.
The uplifting Moroccan movie will unspool on closing night of Critics Week. Kinology represents the film in international markets.
The sprawling, colorful adventure film opens in Casablanca, where a trio of rebellious female outlaws – a mother, her daughter and a young girl – drive through the Atlas desert to reach the Atlantic coast with local police forces on their trail.
Benkiran said her film “celebrates freedom and the power of imagination,” as well as conveying the need for women to free themselves from patriarchal traditions in contemporary Moroccan society.
The up-and-coming French-Moroccan director said she aspired to make a film with depth that blended genre with local mythology to tell this story.
Benkiran said she grew up in Morocco, where she would only get to watch big adventure films with “Americans saving the world of social dramas where Arabs had issues, as if being Moroccan meant that they were not entitled to live romances, science fiction, adventure and fantasies.”
Benkiran, who graduated from the prestigious film school La Femis, previously worked at the Paris-based banner Phares et Balises and penned two books about Morocco. She made her directorial debut with the short film “Winter Hour” in 2018. “Reines” was developed with the support of the Ateliers de l’Atlas, the industry sidebar organized alongside the Marrakech Film Festival.
“Queens” is backed by a strong key crew including music composer Jozef van Wissem whose credits include Jim Jarmusch’s “Only Lovers Left Alive,” and Pierre Aim, the critically acclaimed cinematographer of “The Nile Hilton Incident” and French cult film “La Haine.”
The film was produced by Jean des Forets and Amelie Jacquis at Petit Film, and co-produced by Said Hamich Benlarbi at Mont Fleuri Production, Anne-Laure Guegan and Geraldine Sprimont at Need Productions, Hanneke Neins at Keyfilms and Marie Dubas at Deuxieme Ligne Films.