Hall of Mirror: Sammy Lechea & Zar Amir Ebrahimi Topline Karim Moussaoui’s “The Vanishing”

After making a splash on the Croisette in 2017 with his debut feature Until The Birds Return (Un Certain Regard selection), Karim Moussaoui is finally at work on his sophomore project — which began production today. The Cineuropa folks report that that thesps Sammy Lechea and Zar Amir Ebrahimi will topline The Vanishing with Hamid Amirouche, Idir Chender, Nadia Kaci and Nassima Benchicou added on as supporting players. Production will take place over the next two months – moving from Marseille to Tunisia. Les Films Pelléas’ David Thion and Philippe Martin are producing. The project will likely tempt Locarno and Venice programmers next year.

Written by Moussaoui and Maud Ameline, this is based on the eponymous novel by Samir Toumi and focuses on Réda (Sammy Lechea), who lives with her parents in a bourgeois neighbourhood of Alger, and works in the country’s largest hydrocarbon company that his father Youcef, a charismatic and authoritative man, directs. But under this glaze of seeming success, Réda hides a deep-seated malaise: he lives in his father’s shadow and doesn’t know how to say no to him. His brother Faycal, on the contrary, leads an open rebellion against Youcef, and ends up definitely leaving the family home, leaving Réda to face his solitude and frustration. One day, the father dies and something unexpected occurs: Réda’s reflection in the mirror disappears…