Fyzal Boulifa and I arrive together at his film distributor’s offices, to a boisterous welcome from a pair of French bulldogs. He stoically endures their enthusiasm while confiding under his breath that he is actually terrified of dogs. It seems an apt introduction to a director who spent more than a decade in the shadows, painstakingly teaching himself how to direct short films, before two of them burst into the sunlight with wins at the Cannes film festival.
It was immediately clear that he was something special. The Curse, his 2012 short, which was nominated for a Bafta, is a jewel-like fable of a young Moroccan woman persecuted by children who spot her consorting with a man outside a remote desert settlement. Rate Me (2015) is a portrait of a teenage escort as seen through 12 online user reviews.
