Annual Top Films Lists

Top 200 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2023: #182. Kamal Lazraq’s Les meutes

Published on January 5, 2023

Les meutes

He made quite the impression with his first pair of shorts with the Cannes’ Cinéfondation competition winner in ’11 and a Clermont-Ferrand’s international comp winner in ’15, Kamal Lazraq moved into his directorial debut back in October of last year but he picked up steam prior to this as an Arte Kino International Award winner at the 2019 Atlas Workshops and via some support from The Gan Foundation folks in 2021. Les meutes takes place in the working-class suburbs of Casablanca and essentially places its leads between a rock and a hard place. Barney Production’s Saïd Hamich Benlarbi produced. Cinematographer Amine Berrada (The Unknown Saint) is onboard this project.

Gist: Set in the working-class suburbs of Casablanca where father and son Hassan and Issam try to get by on a day-to-day basis, involving themselves in a string of petty dealings for the local mob. One evening, a man they were supposed to kidnap dies accidentally in their car. Hassan and Issam find themselves with a body they need to get rid of.

Release Date/Prediction: The timing of a Venice Film Fest berth sounds about right – perhaps the Orizzonti section.

Eric Lavallée

Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).