Hip-hop isn’t dead, the film energetically insists; it’s just been hiding in a Moroccan slum.

| Sep 15, 2022

The teenagers’ thoughts on the matters that shape their lives — including sexism and religion — are invigorating. They are conveyed through ardent conversations as well as hip-hop.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 24, 2022

[A] vivid musical drama...

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 2, 2022

Has an infectious energy that pulls us into the ever-changing worlds of its characters. Crucially, it does so in a manner that is both enticing and accessible...

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 1, 2022

The lesson plan is familiar, but it’s still worth attending this school of rap.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 29, 2022

The arts centre is a real-life institution that Ayouch founded in 2014. Basbousi has worked there for years. The pair know what they’re talking about and it’s a pure pleasure to watch and learn.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 29, 2022

It’s smartly done, if a bit on-the-nose.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 29, 2022

The film’s saving grace... is the cast of non-professional teenagers playing fictionalised versions of themselves.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 28, 2022

The film has the power to engage and amuse, and it also delivers a factor that's in short supply in this year's Cannes competition entries: joy.

| Jul 19, 2021

You'd travel a long way with Casablanca Beats's characters - it's just a shame the film doesn't quite take us the distance.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 19, 2021

Casablanca Beats argues that the power of personal expression can turn the world on its head. And for a good spell, the film does just that.

| Jul 19, 2021

It's perhaps a little glib to make a choral event of a hip-hop musical when hip-hop is so much a medium for individual creative expression... but it's hard to argue when the results are this energetic, this empowering and this irresistibly youthful.

| Jul 17, 2021

Ayouch gets it right in Casablanca Beats, communicating the creative excitement of hip-hop from the Moroccan ghetto, where a dedicated former rapper teaches it with cool, focused passion.

| Jul 17, 2021

It's a new arrangement of a very familiar old song.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 17, 2021

A likable, high-energy youth movie that could almost be called the Moroccan answer to Fame and which features that time-honoured plot device: putting on a concert.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 17, 2021

A film which celebrates empowerment and the exhilarating release of finding a voice and being heard.

| Jul 17, 2021