World Premiere · Marrakech International Film Festival · Competition · 2026

Edoardo travels across Morocco, from Casablanca deep into the Sahara, to find a missing ship, while Amastan, a young Tuareg shaman, searches for the sacred amulet stolen from his tribe. Their paths cross at a tribal sanctuary on the Atlantic coast, where secrets of the present awaken shadows of the past.

In the spring of 1961, the merchant ship Talassim vanishes off the Atlantic coast of the Sahara. The Castellas, members of the Spanish mobs, will do anything to track it down. But the southern regions are dangerous, controlled by local tribes and the army, and shaped by ancient rites. Few people in Casablanca can navigate such territory. Edoardo has travelled extensively through his adopted country, Morocco—no one knows the South better. Having just lost his wife Palmyra, he sees the dubious mission as a chance to escape the grip of his grief. He sets out to cross the Sahara with his old friend Aziz. They eventually find the wreck lying near Cape Juby, a former military outpost in the vicinity of Tarfaya.

Meanwhile, a young Tuareg shaman, Amastan, leads a mystic caravan towards the same destination, driven by unsettling visions and the search for the sacred amulet stolen from his tribe.

Dark secrets surround the ship, and those who approach it must pay a high price. As Edoardo becomes trapped in a world of haunting memories, the true purpose of his mission begins to reveal itself.

Yassine Marco Marroccu is a Moroccan-Italian writer and director working between Morocco and Europe. His first feature, Catharsys or The Afina Tales of the Lost World, premiered at Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival. Alkebulan is his second feature film.

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