“A gut punch…. Ayouch brushes aside all nostalgia and exoticism to reveal a city on the verge of a major upheaval.” (The Hollywood Reporter)

Nabil Ayouch (Much Loved, Horses of God) deftly weaves an intricate tale of lost love, forbidden desire, and fragile dreams in modern-day Morocco, merging five narratives in one tumultuous event on the streets of Casablanca. Razzia begins in 1982, in the stunning Atlas Mountains, where an idealistic teacher falls in love with an independent widow. Ayouch then takes us to Casablanca, 2015, where we encounter Salima (Maryam Touzani, who also cowrote the script with Ayouch), who rejects the traditional roles of wife, mother, and even woman; a Jewish café owner caught between honoring his past and his desires; a troubled bourgeois teenager named Inès; and part-time singer and full-time Freddie Mercury fan Hakim. Though the five characters’ lives are wildly different, Ayouch navigates their realities nimbly, creating a complex and profound portrait of a singular city. Ayouch is a former JBFC International Fellow, who showed his Oscar-nominated Horses of God here in 2014—the first screening in this country!—before our own Jonathan Demme helped bring it to American screens.