03/07/2012 - The German director has just finished shooting Exit Marrakech with Ulrich Tukur, Samuel Schneider, and French actress Hafsia Herzi

German director Caroline Link last week finished filming her new feature film, Exit Marrakech, in Bavaria. Made on a budget of around €6m, it was produced by Peter Herrmann and Ute Krämer for Desert Flower Filmproduktion (who are also producing Sherry Hormann’s new film, Anleitung zum Unglücklichsein, set to be released in Germany this November) in co-production with B. A. Produktion (owned by the Arri group) with the support of the FFA and the Bavaria Film Fund.

To make this film, Link has returned to the continent that won her an Oscar for Best Film in a Foreign Language in 2002 with Nowhere in Africa [+see also:
trailer
film profile]. Exit Marrakech, for which she also wrote the screenplay, is set in Europe and Morocco. The film is about Ben, a 17-year-old whose parents are divorced, and his father Heinrich, a theatre director who travels a lot and seldom has time for his son. When a directing job comes up in Morocco, he takes Ben on holiday with him, something he hasn’t done for years. But instead of making them both closer, this trip allows Ben to explore other paths and to fall in love with a local girl. The tragic consequences of this love affair and the ensuing threat on Ben's life will offer the young man and his father one last chance to settle their differences.

Samuel Schneider, who plays Ben, and Ulrich Tukur (The Life of Others [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Florian Henckel von Donners…
interview: Ulrich Muehe
film profile]), who plays Heinrich, appear alongside Josef Bierbichler and French actress Hafsia Herzi (House of Tolerance [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Adèle Haenel
film profile]), who plays Ben's Moroccan love interest. The film is shot in German, French, English, and Arabic.

As announced at the beginning of the Cannes Film Festival, German international sales agency Arri Worldsales will be in charge of selling Exit Marrakech abroad. StudioCanal will release the film in Germany next year.

(Translated from French)