CASABLANCA BEATS

An audience favorite at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, this buoyant drama follows former rapper Anas (Anas Basbousi) as he begins a new job at a cultural center in a rough Casablanca neighborhood and sets about teaching his teenage pupils about the transformative power of hip-hop. Though Anas’s students face difficult home lives and struggle to express themselves in a restrictive society, they begin to find their voices in stirring, autobiographical verses. French-Moroccan auteur Nabil Ayouch (Much Loved, PFF24) drew on his own experiences of opening a youth center to craft the narrative of Casablanca Beats, and cast mainly non-actors in roles that feel suffused with the vividness of lived experience.