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The bittersweet travails of two not-very-successful Casablanca-based debt collectors as they traverse the arid villages of Morocco in search of loan deadbeats eventually intersects with a tragic love story in “Deserts,” the sixth feature from Moroccan writer-director Faouzi Bensaïdi. Boasting striking Cinemascope visuals, it’s a nonlinear drama spiked with ellipses that mixes moods and genres. Those that prefer straightforward cinema with dotted I’s and crossed T’s will be out of their comfort zone here, but it looks like manna for cinephiles. Bensaïdi, who has a parallel career as an actor and theater director, is an auteur who is overdue for a retrospective Stateside.

At the beginning, Bensaïdi gives viewers a clue to the film’s unconventionality as the map that wrinkled-suit-and-tie-clad Mehdi (Fehd Benchemsi) and Hamid (Abdelhadi Taleb) are examining blows away. As the two men make their way around some picturesque but impoverished villages, the stories...

As if new films from the Coens and Jeff Nichols weren’t enough, the 2016 Berlin Film Festival has further expanded their line-up, adding some of our most-anticipated films of the year. Mia Hansen-Løve, following up her incredible, sadly overlooked drama Eden, will premiere the Isabelle Huppert-led Things to Come, while Thomas Vinterberg, Lav Diaz, André Téchiné, and many more will stop by with their new features. Check out the new additions below, followed by some previously announced films, notably John Michael McDonagh‘s War on Everyone.

Competition

Cartas da guerra (Letters from War)

Portugal

By Ivo M. Ferreira (Na Escama do Dragão)

With Miguel Nunes, Margarida Vila-Nova

World premiere

Ejhdeha Vared Mishavad! (A Dragon Arrives!)

Iran

By Mani Haghighi (Modest Reception, Men at Work)

With Amir Jadidi, Homayoun Ghanizadeh, Ehsan Goudarzi, Kiana Tajammol

International premiere

Fuocoammare (Fire at Sea) – documentary

Italy / France

By Gianfranco Rosi (Sacro Gra, El Sicario...

Moroccan filmmaker Hicham Lasri is poised to return to the big screen with a new feature, his third in three years.

Titled Starve Your Dog, the film now has a festival trailer. Lasri once again takes on both directorial and screenwriting duties, working with a cast that includes relative newcomers Latifa Ahrarre and Jirari Ben Aissa alongside Fehd Benchemsi.

The film’s synopsis is as follows:

In the audacious new feature from Morocco’s Hicham Lasri, a once-famous journalist desperate to make a comeback lands a major interview with the dreaded interior minister of the despotic former regime — but the anger and dissension among her camera crew makes it hard to predict whether they’ll actually be able to get this controversial show in the can.

The trailer itself doesn’t reveal much about the story, instead highlighting a number of unconventional framing choices, with minimal use of a score,...

In Death For Sale, the three best friends that anyone could ever have falter under the weight of their petty crime lives and the economic reality facing twenty-somethings in Morocco. They’re lost youth, scumming their way on the streets and in the nightclubs without any kind of direction. Writer/director Fauozi Bensaïdi‘s story picks up just as the group is beginning to diverge. Malik (Fehd Benchemsi) has fallen hard for a prostitute called Dounia (Imane Elmechrafi) despite her status as forbidden fruit. The naive Soufiane (Fouad Labied) hatches a plan to steal a rich girl’s purse that has profound, unintended consequences. The hardened Allal (Mouhcine Malzi) is determined to become a big fish in the suddenly empty drug-dealing pond. Everything should work out fine, right? Like most films from the Arab world, this one deals with 1) what it means to be a man and 2) crime. Yet, even within a sea of sameness, the...

Following up the initial announcement of titles, the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival revealed it will open with the period drama Les Adieux à la reine (Farewell My Queen) today. From director Benoît Jacquot, the drama stars Inglourious Basterds lead Diane Kruger, as well as Léa Seydoux who broke-out in Midnight in Paris and Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol this year. Based on, Chantal Thomas’ novel we have the first stills of the film (from Lumiere via The Playlist) that follows the “first few days of the French Revolution from the perspective of the servants at Versailles.”

Kruger, who plays Marie Antoinette here, has only appeared in one big film following her post-Basterds role with Unknown, but I look forward to her future work, especially with this film. I thought Seydoux was great as an action villain in Ghotocol and excited to see her career rise. Check out the stills below,...

The Berlinale's announced today that 20 films are now lined up for its Panorama program. All in all, around 50 titles will make up the main program, Panorama Special and Panorama Dokumente.

10+10 by Hou Hsiao-hsien, Wang Toon, Wu Nien-Jen, Sylvia Chang, Chen Guo-Fu, Wei Te-Sheng, Chung Meng-Hung, Chang Tso-Chi, Arvin Chen, Yang Ya-Che and others, Taiwan — see a full report from the Taipei Film Commission: "Funded by the Golden Horse Film Festival and the Republic of China Centenary Foundation, 10+10 [is] a movie comprised of 20 short films by 10 renowned and 10 emerging Taiwanese filmmakers."

Death For Sale by Faouzi Bensaïdi, France

With Fehd Benchemsi, Fouad Labiad, Mouhcine Malzi, Imane Elmechrafi, Faouzi Bensaïdi

Die Wand (The Wall) by Julian Roman Pölsler, Austria/Germany

With Martina Gedeck — Synopsis from The Match Factory: "(1.) The wall is a highly unusual exploration of solitude and survival. (2.) It is the story of a woman who is separated from the...