WE COULD BE HEROES / DE UØNSKEDE HELTE

Creative documentary one-off, 80 min., 2018

When Azzedine Nouiri comes back home to Morocco from the London Paralympic Games with a gold medal and world record, he thinks his life is about to change and he will finally have the means to build a bright future and feed his family. However, he is instead immediately forgotten by the federation and the government who deny him the right to a salary, social care and even the right to train in his city’s athletics stadium.

But at the same time, he becomes the symbol of success for Youssef, a mentally disabled illiterate boy who has been isolated all his life and would now love to take the plane for the first time, see the world, be seen. Motivated by his fight for social justice, Azzedine takes Youssef under his wings with the aim of making both of them reach the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games. This unusual pair’s journey ends up being less about sport and more about the pains and the joys of their struggle to exist as men in a society uninterested in elevating those who are different.

In the face of the challenges they encounter, “We Could Be Heroes” casts a deep introspective into Moroccan society, and the need for those who are marginalised to be loved and accepted to feel worthy.

Director Hind Bensari

Producers Vibeke Vogel & Habib Attia

Editor Sofie Steenberger

Sound Designer Roar Skau Olsen

Composer Tin Soheili

Produced with support from Doha Film Institute, International Media Support, DANIDA, Creative Europe, Fonds Image de la Francophonie, Film Workshop / Copenhagen, The SANAD Fund

A co-production with Cinetéléfilms in collaboration with Disconnected Films Morocco

Awards Nominated for Best International Documentary, Emerging Director Award & Audience Award – Hotdocs 2018

Sales inquiries contact Bullitt Film

For DVD contact clara@bullittfilm.dk

TRAILER

De uønskede helte dokumentar af Hind Bensari og Bullitt Film

Hind Bensari

Born in 1987 in Casablanca, Hind quit her job as Business Development Manager of a media fund in London to produce and direct her first documentary "475: Break the Silence" released in May 2013 in Morocco. Self-taught, she launched a crowd-funding and social media campaign to raise awareness on the practice of marrying young girls to their rapist and put together a team to shoot around Morocco and ask the question "how have we come to believe that marriage could be a just reparation to rape?" as the premise of the documentary. “We Could Be Heroes” is her first feature and it was awarded Best International Feature at Hot Docs in 2018. Hind lives in Paris.