In hellish Casablanca, a car-crash sets ablaze a burning, passionate love story between has-been rocker Larsen and the streetwise amazon Rajae. An unspoken trauma is their common history; rock n' roll their mutual saviour. Larsen's snakeskin-covered guitar and Rajae's liquid gold voice could be heaven, if only everything from his drug-induced visions to her music-buff pimp didn't get in the way. The only hope for their blooming romance is to skip this ferocious town. Is there a way out of this crazy Moroccan underworld with its menagerie of sadistic cops, venomous snakes, metal concerts and shotgun-wielding modern-day Calamity Janes? For these punk Romeo and Juliet, maybe the answer lies in a song - the one they've been writing and dreaming together : Zanka Contact. DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT In my mind, Zanka Contact is not a film but a wild fire. The desire for this movie consumed me like a flame, devouring everything in its path. Everything I love: 1970s Moroccan rock bands and Italian westerns, silver skull rings and powerful women characters; the dream of live music on 35mm Cinemascope and the street poetry of Casablanca’s slang. The fire fed on everything I dread too, mixing it all into a flaming cocktail stirred by unhinged fiction. To me, emotion is the only reality. As an African filmmaker I want to claim my right to fiction, to imagination, to a territory seldom occupied by films from my region. Cinema is not about the subject; it’s not even about the story. It’s a spell we fall under: it’s a belief in magic. That, to me, is the political stance of Zanka Contact: to claim a part in this shared dream, not for its subject but for its witchcraft.