Casablanca- "L’Armée du salut" (the Army of salvation), a film by Moroccan director Abdellah Taia, earned the first prize in France’s Premiers Plans Angers Festival held from January 17 through to 26, beating out other French films that competed in the event.
Abdellah Taia’s film stole the spotlight from other French movies that took place in the French festival. The jury praised the Moroccan director’s film as demonstrating cinematic excellence and attention to detail.
The film tells the story of a teenager, Abdellah, in the Casablanca of the 1980s. The 81 minutes film tells the story of the gay life of Abdellah, being in bad terms with his father in the Casablanca of 1980s. He lives in a popular area of the city, with a modest family, surrounded by an overbearing mother, a weary father, several sisters absorbed in the futility of their youth, and a brother he loves so much that his love for him causes ambiguity.
In the streets of Casablanca, he has occasional sexual intercourse with men. Ten years later, after his brother Slimane abandoned him, Abdellah lives with his Swiss lover, Jean, then leaves the country and goes to Geneva. Once there, he decides to break up and to start a new life alone and took shelter in a house of the Salvation Army. In Geneva, he has love affairs coupled with the turmoil of exile, whose pain remains deeply rooted in his memory.
In the film, the naive teenager has his first sexual experiences, exploited by some of the people he encounters throughout the film.
Born in Sale, Morocco, the thirty-nine year old, Abdellah Taïa is the first Moroccan and Arab writer to have openly come out about his homosexuality in an interview with the literary magazine TelQuel in 2007.
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