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PARIS — Morocco has named thesp-turned-helmer Roschdy Zem’s “Omar Killed Me” (Omar m’a tuer) as its entry for consideration in Oscar’s foreign- language category.
The procedural drama-thriller is based on the story of Omar Raddad, a Moroccan gardener who was sentenced to 18 years in a French prison for murdering an elderly woman in the 1990s and pardoned in 1998 by then-president Jacques Chirac. Starring Franco-Tunisian thesp Sami Bouajila (“Outside of the Law”), pic is Zem’s sophomore effort after “Bad Faith.” Rachid Bouchareb and Jean Brehat, the helmer-producer duo behind “Days of Glory” and “Outside of the Law,” are producing via their Paris-based Tessalit Prods. The Moroccan selection committee, headed by film critic Mohamed Gallaoui, includes fellow critics Ahmed Boughaba and Omar Benkhemmar, thesp Mouna Fettou, helmers-producers Kamal Kamal and Abdelkrim Derkaoui and the Moroccan Cinema Center’s head of communication Mohamed Bakrim and head of production Saloua Zouitten.
