Rabat – Cannes Film Festival has officially selected the feature film “Rebel” by directing duo Adil El Arbi and Billal Fallah for its night screening.
“‘REBEL’ Our 5th movie will premier at the 75th Cannes Film Festival! We’re so grateful and blessed to be part of the official selection! A dream come true. Alhamdoulillah,” Billal Fallah posted on Instagram.
The festival is expected to last from May 17 to 28 and bring together the best actors, directors, screenwriters, producers, and agents in the film industry.
Rebel features a personal story for the Moroccan-descent Belgian directors. Written by El Arbi, Fallah, Jan Van Dyck and Kevin Meul, the film narrates the story of Kamal, a young boy who leaves Belgium to assist war victims in Syria.
Soon after reaching the war zone, he is forced to join a militia in Raqqa. Back home, radical recruiters approach Nassim, Kamal’s brother, and promise him to reunite with his brother as his mother Leila fights to protect him.
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“I consider this to be our most personal movie out of all the movies we’ve done,” El Arbi told Deadline, adding that many people in Europe have a family member or a friend who was radicalized.
Recalling ISIS’ recruitment and radicalization of Moroccan youth in Belgium, he added, “We wanted to tell the story of how romantic and heroic Jihad might seem at first glance and how religion is used as a weapon.”
Aboubakr Bensaihi, Lubna Azabal, Amir El Arbi, Tara Abboud and Younes Bouab star in the film.
In 2020, El Arbi and Fallah directed Bad Boys For Life, which grossed $426.5 million worldwide. They rose to fame thanks to their film Black, a parody of Romeo and Juliet in the organized crime community in Belgium.
The two directors are represented by CAA, Management 360, and Karl Austen. Wild Bunch International will handle Rebel’s sales with CAA Media Finance managing US sales.
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