Queens
Fall Grants 2019 - Production Stage
Yasmine Benkiran / Feature Narrative / Morocco, France, Qatar / 90 min / Original Language: Darija / Interests: Women, Drama, Road Trip, Fantasy
Synopsis
Casablanca, Morocco.
27-year-old Zineb is a repeat offender behind bars. When she learns that her fanciful and wild eight-year-old daughter, Inès, has been expelled from school and sent to a children’s home, she escapes from prison, kidnaps her daughter, and heads south. On the road, she holds up a truck driven by the young Asma, and takes her hostage.
Zineb is loud-spoken and unpredictable. Asma, on the other hand, is quiet and hardened to life. They appear to have nothing in common, but the fate of Inès brings them together in a mission to offer the child a future. The trio soon has the police on their tail, thus starting a long escape that takes them across the rugged red terrain and flower-filled valleys of the Atlas to finally reach the Atlantic coast.
‘Queens’ is an escape and adventure film, but as the story develops, it adopts another identity—one of a fable. Little Inès is sure she is there to fulfil a prophecy, that of the Queen of the Jinns.
Credits
- Director
- Yasmine Benkiran
- Screenwriter
- Yasmine Benkiran
- Producer
- Jean des Forêts (Petit Film), Saïd Hamich (Mont Fleuri Productions)
About the Director
Yasmine Benkiran grew up on the Moroccan Atlantic coast. As a screenwriter, she writes for both television and cinema. She is currently co-writing with Sarah Farkas ‘La Bibliothèque Noire’, an anthology of fantastic stories, directed by Vincent Mariette and produced by Elzevir Films. In 2018, Yasmine directed her first short film, ‘Winter Time’ (Tangier IFF, Off-courts Trouville) and she is now developing her first feature film as a director, ‘Queens’.