BEHIND THE PALM TREES

Director’s statement

Behind the Palm Trees starts out as a romance, but gradually shifts to become a psychological thriller with a much darker atmosphere. My film is a love story, between Medhi, a modest young Moroccan, and Marie, a young French expatriate with a luxurious life. But behind the palm trees, “History” inevitably played a part through the relationship of domination that still exists between Morocco and France.

With this film, I would like to follow a passion that will be consumed by cultural, economic and social differences. I would like to question our individual relationship to love and equality in a couple, but also to question love in its political dimension and to examine the way in which the family and, more broadly, society infiltrates the intimate.

This film is above all the story of the failure of a man, who will have given everything for the illusion of a perfect happiness and social success, but who will be condemned to return to his family.