At the start of ‘Backstage’, the first feature directorial collaboration between Moroccan filmmaker Khalil Benkirane and Tunisian star Afef Ben Mahmoud, the unthinkable happens. And we, the audience, are along for the ride of a lifetime.

There is nothing more terrifying to a dancer than the idea of being physically dropped by their partner, on stage and during a performance. It is so terrifying that it is unthinkable. Yet, at the start of Backstage, the first cinematic collaboration between Moroccan filmmaker Khalil Benkirane and Tunisian star Afef Ben Mahmoud, the unthinkable happens.

In the first scene of Backstage, Aida is dancing in an ensemble piece that focuses on the environment, lights and costumes consuming the audience’s (our) attention. She is beautiful, undeniably so, played perfectly by Ben Mahmoud who also co-directed, co-produced and wrote the film. The camera has always loved Ben Mahmoud, and the actress also happens to be a former dancer, which is so important in films about dancing. There is no pretending that people are dancing in Backstage, as her dance and life partner Hedi is also played by a giant of the dance scene, renowned choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. As Aida taunts him with her expression and her body, Hedi at one point drops her from his back and she falls on the right side. Ben Mahmoud’s face at that moment betrays the impossibility of that move, the “how could he, yet he did,” of that act. As another aside, falling for a dancer is something monstrous. It not only shames the performer but it usually causes injuries that are way more damaging than those suffered by non-dancers. The body is so tense and focused on the performance, that it often falls in horrendous ways and Aida’s fall happens to be that.

What follows is the company’s search for a doctor. The troupe is due to dance their final performance for the season in Marrakech, and Aida is clearly in distress, both physical but also mental. The latter goes back to the idea of dancers and their trust but also where her relationship stands, as we later find out. Anyway, Hedi has broken that trust and she’s now left in a sea of doubt. But also resolve, or the part would not be played by the powerful Ben Mahmoud.

Once it is confirmed that the nearest doctor is only available in village far away from the town where they have just performed, the troupe gets on their bus and travels through a forest in the depth of the Atlas Mountains.

I must pause for a moment here and admit that simply writing that brings tears to my eyes. That is the area which was so badly affected by the tragic earthquake on the 8th of September, just days after I watched Backstage on the big screen in Venice. It is a magical part of Morocco, one I have also crossed on a bus and remember vividly for the kindness of its people. And when the cinematic bus in Backstage swerves to avoid a monkey on the road, only to find the crew stranded by two flat tires and only one spare, the move by the bus driver, who walks away to search for help, should not have surprised me.

Yet, like me, the dancers and their manager, played by Palestinian star Saleh Bakri, end up taking to the woods on foot, thinking that their driver has abandoned them, there, in the middle of the forest.

What follows in the film becomes less about a structural narrative and more about exploring the taboos of modern Arab culture. A woman who puts her career first and doesn’t want children; one who drinks and behaves as men are expected to, not women; loves lost, loves discovered and much of what we aren’t used to watching in Arab titles — whatever that definition means. It is in the forest that Backstage truly takes flight, becoming magical in its atmosphere and deeply poignant in its themes. A group of people, from different backgrounds and spanning several cultures, united by their love of dance. This is cinema at its purest and greatest.

I couldn’t help but imagine a fantastic utopia thanks to Backstage, which shows us a world where insecurities and difficulties are approached through the movements of our bodies and even the most traumatic experience can be worked through, with the help of others. Maybe even “the Other.” Wouldn’t that be truly groundbreaking.

The group, while in this dark night forest also has to come to terms with the environment around them, which of course is very different in real life from their dance “cause,” the environment they embraced in their performance, through images played around them on stage. More goosebumps moments there for me, as Mother Nature seems to have scored one on the humans in this last month. But like the Moroccans in real life, this group is a resilient one.

As a personal aside, I have been waiting for this film since it was announced that Ben Mahmoud and Benkirane, two of my favorite personalities in world cinema, were making it. Everything about Backstage sounded perfect to me, including the fact that it participated in this year’s Qumra event, supported by the Doha Film Institute — a fave organization in the Gulf. And yet, when it came time to watch it, at a press screening in Venice on the big screen, I was afraid that my expectations were too high. Rest assured, they weren’t, as the beauty and mystical power of this cinematic work of art combining so perfectly dance and fashion — two of my deepest loves — is unequaled. And the questions raised by its writer Ben Mahmoud and the film’s co-director Benkirane, are the kind of queries which we should be asking ourselves, and each other.

To be noted, the film world premiered in the Giornati degli Autori Competition lineup at this year’s 80th Venice Film Festival, where it received the Cinema & Arts Award given by the Associazione Kalambur Teatro in collaboration with Ateatro and Electrotheatre Stanislavsky.

Costumes are simply phenomenal, the kind one wishes one could own now and wear. They are the creation of designer Salima Abdel Wahab, who also plays the anti-conformist Amber (see the clip above) in the film, with Nezha Dakil in charge of wardrobe and fitting. Benjamin Rufi is the DoP, with editing done by Rawchen Mizouri, Skander Ben Ammar, along with Ben Mahmoud. The original music is by Steve Shehan and the set designed is by Fatma Madani and Redouane Nasserddine. Sound, by Aymen Labidi, is another important part of the story, and the little noises in the forest make the spectator feel like they are along for the ride with the dancers.

And kudos to all the actors/dancers for their soulful, credible performances — the ones mentioned above as well as Sondos Belhassen, Sofiane Ouissi, Hajiba Fahmy, Ali Thabet, Abdallah Badis and Nassim Baddag.

The film is co-produced by Benkirane and Ben Mahmoud (Lycia Productions and Mesanges Films), along with Isabelle Truc (Belgium), Metafora Production (Qatar), Tania El Khoury (France), Mohamed Hefzy (Egypt), Linda Bolstad Strønen, Marie Fuglestein Lægreid and Ingrid Lill Høgtun (Norway).

Images courtesy of the Giornate degli Autori, used with permission.