Brainless-Final-screen copie

BRAINLESS
A FILM BY
HICHAM
LASRI

BRAINLESS
A FILM BY
HICHAM
LASRI
“I know a interesting old Chinese legend: It’s the story of a man who
has all the knowledge of the world in a library. But he has no staff.
Also, whoever enters becomes a slave and has to look after the place
until their death. In feudal China it was a way of dissuading the peasants
from educating themselves. Like in Europe before the printerpress…”
Nada Sibawayeh
“Where I’m from grey matter is toxic”
Daoud Hasska
3

Pitch
Nada is a good looking girl, a bit punk, a bit tattooed, some
piercings, died hair, in exile in Canada where she enjoys the
freedom denied to her in Casablanca.
Our Story Starts when she sneezes and her brain pops out
onto the kitchen counter.
She starts her journey to find the money to have the operation
to put her brain back in her head. It costs a fortune and
the only person rich enough to pay for it is her father. The only
problem being that she has not spoken to him for 15 years.
She goes back to Casablanca and to her horror discovers
that her father is dead. 40 thieves have taken everything. Nada
embarks on a journey to find the 40 thieves and get back what
is rightfully hers.
The city becomes a hunting ground. A hunt for treasure in a
jungle hostile to Nada and her decomposing brain.
Nada sets out on a race against time, at first to save her brain
and later fuelled by the guilt of abandoning her father.
5

Welcome to the age of the wireless brain.
7

Synopsis
In 2003 the Moroccan courts condemned 13 musicians for
Satanism in a momentous and Kafkaesque trial that
shocked the nation. What the public does not know is
that there was a 14th person who was spared thanks to her
father’s wealth and a corrupt justice system. This person was
Nada Sibawayeh the young and very pretty drummer of the
group. Avoiding catastrophe her father decides to send her to
study in Canada.
20 years later we meet Nada. She has never been back home.
She has made a life for herself in the cold and the Canadian
snow. She is an unabashed party girl with a piercing in her
tongue and a cross around her neck.
All is good.
Parties are in full swing.
The hangover promises to be a cataclysmic.
Nada see hers life turn around she sneezes and her brain
falls out of her head.
She has no other choice but to pour out the goldfish from a jug
and let her brain float around in the water and carry it around
with her where she goes. If she moves more than 7 feet away
from her brain she could die.
Welcome to the age of the wireless brain.
She finds out that the cost of having her brain put back in her
head she looks for every possible way of finding money without
having to turn to her wealthy father that she hasn’t spoken to
for 15 years. She knocks on every door looking for money but
nobody can help her, it is just too much money.
She drifts around with her brain in a jar as it dawns on her that
she will have to go back to the only person that can help her.
Facing death, Nada is obliged to go back to Casablanca where
she discovers that her father died 4 years ago and 40 thieves
have stripped him of his wealth. Nada embarks on an obsessive
journey to find every one of her father’s possessions and
through this she will relive the past 15 years of her absence and
the last days of her father.
The first object she finds are her old drumsticks. She will carry
them everywhere with her, slowly finding her connection to the
music and the few survivors of the days of the 13 Satanists. She
taps her drumsticks against any and every surface whenever
possible.
From this absurd situation begins a strange urban journey
in which this brain on display to the world provokes hatred,
machismo, fundamentalism, the media and above all the interest
of a billionaire with a rotting brain who will try anything to get
hold of Nada’s.
While her brain is busy rotting in the jar that she carries with
her everywhere her senses fade one by one and she loses more
and more of her humanity, turning into a sort of dazed zombie
with a grey tint to her skin and limp hair. Nada can’t and won’t
give up the fight to stay alive and save her father’s honour.
9

The brain in a jar becomes an absurd symbol of the
crass stupidity of a society caught in stalemate.
11

Development
“There are two things that horrify me in this world,
phones without cords and puppets without strings”
Bob Dylan
Nada/
Nada was part of that innumerable group of kids in Casablanca
who didn’t know whether to turn left towards the Hassan
II mosque or right towards the bar where alcohol is readily
available or stay in the middle and head towards the stadium to
support one of the two city’s football teams.
All she knows is that she cannot find her destiny with the GPS
on her smartphone.
Nada is a pretty young woman, half rebel, half feminist and the
last half arriviste.
Brilliant young woman with a sick mind, she tries everything but
succeeds at nothing. She has to resort to trickery and charm
to find her place in this world without getting her hands dirty.
It doesn’t make her happy, nothing much in her life is very
interesting.
Nada finds everyone a bit stupid. She sees her herself on the
outside but her combative style, her humour and her ability to
deceive have got her out of many a situation.
She was divorced because she is sterile.
She bumps into her ex’s new wife. She’s pregnant. This encounter
destroys her. She will meet her another time during out
tale, this time carrying the new born baby and Nada carrying
her aborted brain.
Nada’s adventure starts when she wakes up on a Sunday morning
with a terrible hangover after a hipster party in Canada.
Nada is drowning her sorrows by cheating on her “fiancé” and
cheating her boredom by opening her legs rather than opening
a book.
Important note: Nada is an ignorant intellectual
She can name drop like the best of them and has created a
place for herself amongst the cultural class by bandying about
references and quotes without really every understanding what
she is talking about.
She is forever buying books that she will never read and creates
an aura of being cultured, but her real joy is to dance the
“Kaada” (a metal container) to devilish Chaabi music…she gave
up music herself years ago after the whole business with the 14
Satanists. She sees herself as a fifth Beatle.
Nada can show off a G-string from her low cut jeans as much
as she likes, she is at heart a country girl with an old-school
mind-set.
The story starts when Nada sees her brain pop out of some
orifice or other and bounce off the kitchen counter. She puts
her brain in a jug to go and see a doctor. The doctor explains
that she has “lost” her brain and needs to reinsert it immediately
to avoid damaging it.
She mustn’t move further than seven feet away from her brain
or she may die.
When she realises that she doesn’t have the money to go ahead
with the operation to put her brain back in her head she turns
to the only person that can help her: her father. The problem
being that she hasn’t spoken to him since the whole business
with the 14 Satanists.
13

Canada/
The way she sees it, he stole her destiny as a Joan of Arc from
her. She was going to bring down the hypocritical system. He
became her Judas in this witch-hunt. She left her friends rotting
in state jail while her name was rubbed off the criminal register.
Death in the air, she tries to contact her father but finds out
that he has been dead for 4 years and all of his wealth has been
taken by 40 thieves. Nada sets out to get back her father’s
possessions less and less in order to finance her operation and
more to buy back her favour. The memory of father haunts her,
obsesses her when she finds out that he spent years talking
about her, waiting for a sign from her and even sent people to
Canada to look for her.
Nada begins a pilgrimage in the memories and sites of her
childhood furnished by the ghosts of the past that she has tried
so hard to bury.
Nada’s story is a pilgrimage under the prism of the brain that
she carries everywhere with her all the while trying to appear
normal.
All of her failures in life jump out at her, the police, censorship,
her sterility, her shitty love affairs and her one-night stands.
15

The
Airport/
It is with no joy that Nada goes back to the country of her
birth. She gets an ulcer just thinking about it. This ulcer erupts
when she gets to Casablanca airport. At the airport she has to
go the pharmacy and we learn a lot about Nada and the past 15
years.
Under the disapproving look of the customs officials for whom
she is a bad girl, a meskhoutate walidine for whom there is no
cure. She is given a bottle of Antacid and sent on her way.
The Antacid becomes her travel companion. She brings it out
every time she is faced with a problem that might provoke
stomach pains. To calm her ulcer she will pour Antacid into
the jar with her brain in until the infamous Antacid shortage of
stock that will knock her to the floor.
17

Casablanca/
On her return Nada is shocked to find that her father
passed away four years ago and all of his wealth and belongings,
cars, shops, money, cinemas, has been stripped
by 40 of his entourage.
The scavengers have shared her inheritance amongst
themselves.
Broke and broken-hearted Nada realises that the only
way to sort this mess out and to honour her father is
to go on a crusade to get back what ALL of her father’s
belongings.
19

21

The
Father’s
House/
At her father’s house Nada finds the place ransacked, totally destroyed.
The house is being squatted by the old doorman who
has turned it into a stop house, renting out rooms to workers,
poor families, Syrian and sub-Saharan refugees.
Nada regrets the separation, the years away from home. She
realises she had left her father to the wolves.
She also realises that she has nothing. She is even more broke
et washed out than she thought. She is also going to lose her
brain, her senses are slowly drifting away.
Angry, Nada starts to try and kick everybody out but the doorman
explains the situation. After the death of her father people
with made up debts came to collect payment. The doorman,
confused by the situation had lost his job and after so many
years in service his only to make any money renting out rooms
to the poor and rejects of society who have no other options.
He starts to help her clear everybody out but Nada takes pity
on the squatters and lets them stay.
Nada learns that the doorman had sent her many letters to
let her know what was happening but they were all returned
unread – he shows her an impressive pile of unread letters.
Nada decides to move in with the people squatting her father’s
house. It is a strange cohabitation with Nada trying to fins
traces and memories of her father.
23

Her
Father’s
Belongings/
Nada’s father is a tajer a well-connected businessman with
many people under his charge but the death of his wife and his
separation from his only daughter, Nada, left him week, isolated
and sickly over the years. He was an easy target for predators,
crooks, con men seeking to take advantage but it was his right
hand man, Haj Britel who brought about his downfall.
Nada remembers Britel very well. He has now become Haj
Britel after three trips to Mecca to clear himself of his reputation
as a Mafioso. Nada remembers his yellow-toothed smile,
his terrifying stare, his tribal scars on his cheeks. Nada also
remembers being absolutely terrified of Haj Britel and could
never understand why her father didn’t see him for what he
really was.
25

The Search/
With the help of the doorman and some of the squatters form
her father’s house Nada sets out to find every one of the thieves
who has stripped her father’s wealth and get it back. Using her
memory and the help of the doorman she makes a list of everything
missing from the house in a notebook and another list of 40
objects and people to find.
Nada will fight for her father’s memory.
She will chase away the demons of the past and honour her
father’s memory.
Our hero’s journey begins.
27

30 DAYS IN
WHICH TO NOT
LOSE A FAMILY/
29

The countdown has started. She has seven days (the best
before on her brain) to find her father’s wealth and pay for her
operation. She starts preparing for her operation in Canada and
tries to convince the hospital that she can pay for it. This will be
the Sword of Damocles hanging over her neck for throughout
the story.
In order to try and gain back favour the doorman will become
her assistant and guide for Morocco that she left 15 years ago-
Without too much trouble, Nada manages to convince the
garage owner of her rightful claim to the car. He gives her the
keys. This is going to be very handy for getting around the country
looking for her inheritance. And even if the car is heavy and
unyielding she will be a blessing, an assault tank in the search for
Haj Britel.
Embarrassed the garage owner even fills up the tank and sends
Nada off, wishing her good luck. He gives her a clue as to how
to find the next “thief” and the next object she needs to find.
THE LIST/
She buys a pen and starts to travel the country looking for the
remains of her father’s wealth. On her list are 40 places, 40
people, 40 objects, 40 encounters. The doorman tells her that it
is Haj Britel, her father’s right hand man who took everything,
money, property, stocks, goods, warehouses, and that if she
wants to get back her inheritance she needs to find him.
Nada sets out to find Haj Britel but realises how difficult the
task is going to be so starts out with the first object on her list
hoping that this will lead her to her most important target: Haj
Britel.
First stop, downtown. She gets back the first object on her list,
a beautiful old Rolls Royce without too much struggle, she gets
it back from the garage where her father would have the car
serviced. She herself remembered the place from going there
every time the car broke down.
Without too much trouble, Nada manages to convince the
garage owner of her rightful claim to the car. He gives her the
keys. This is going to be very handy for getting around the country
looking for her inheritance. And even if the car is heavy and
unyielding she will be a blessing, an assault tank in the search for
Haj Britel.
THE CHASE BEGINS/
Every place, every encounter brings back so many memories
of her childhood, of the people she during the good years she
spent with her father. She is on a pilgrimage to the places of
her childhood. She is on a road of reconciliation, of peace and
forgiveness. A difficult journey full of obstacles and challenges
but also full of life and surprises both good and bad.
On her journey, whenever she seems to be getting close to Haj
Britel he disappears which allows Nada to find pieces of her
puzzle left behind. On her journey she will meet Aida, a childhood
crush and one of the 13 members of her rock group who
has been become a high-ranking officer in the police force. She
will help her to find some of the “thieves” but above all to get
out of some of the difficult situations she will find herself in on
her hunt for Haj Britel.
Aide will prove to be a valuable ally they re-find the spark of
passion between them as the date of Nada’s operation looms.
When she finds Britel she finds him fantastically wealthy but
dying of a brain tumour. He tries to buy Nada’s brain but she
refuses. He will try to steal it by sending one of his stooges
after her.
31

THE END/
While most people want her to put her brain back in her head,
to show a bt of decency, a business wants to buy it and others
want to turn her into a freak show.
Towards the end of the film, after facing many difficult tasks and
a life changing voyage Nada finds herself in a kids park. She puts
her brain down on the edge of a roundabout that turns and
temporarily carries it away and back again.
Next to her the signal for Wi-Fi reception rises and falls like a
heart beat.
She moves away slowly to collapse on a bench.
She tries to resist the feeling when her brain moves away from
her.
Fade to Black.
We leave her sat on the bench, her brain abandoned on the
merry-go-round.
33

CHARACTERS/
NADA SIBAWAYAH
Nada is well into her thirties. She has lived in Canada since
2003 and cut all ties with her Moroccan heritage, her past and
most of all her father. She dug herself a hole in Canada and lives
there with her lovers, her cats, her tattoos and piercings. It is
the life of a trendy young thing of her age (connected to the
web but totally disconnected from reality). She is the only escapee
from the resounding sham of the Satanist arrests in 2003
in Casablanca. Disgusted with her country, her heritage and her
father. When she loses her brain she realises that she is totally
alone in a cruel world and decides to go home to try and revive
a relationship with her father. She heads off to Casablanca unannounced
and finds that her father passed away four years ago
and that his entourage has stripped him of all of his wealth.
Nada embarks on a frantic journey to find her father’s wealth
and belongings. This journey that starts out as a means to a financial
end becomes one of mystery, self-discovery, forgiveness
and reconciliation.
NADA’S FATHER/
Nada’s father is a phantom character in the film. His memory
haunts every image, every action and every corner of the city of
Casablanca. Nada sets out just wanting to get back her inheritance,
but step-by-step an emotional thread weaves through
Nada’s story – she starts to want to honour her father, his life’s
work and keep his memory from dissipating into noise of this
cruel and forgetful world.
The father was not a big man but Nada remembers a giant, a
rock, a man that did everything for those around him (his employees)
but in reality he was just a businessman obsessed with
his affairs who had no other interest apart from his daughter
who ended up abandoning him.
HAJ BRITEL/
Nada’s Father’s right hand man is the man who Nada will be
searching for throughout our tale. He is the big bad wolf of the
story, he betrayed her father’s trust, he was ultimately responsible
for his death (which helps Nada out as she initially thinks
that he died of a broken-heart). When Nada finally finds him
she is confronted with a pathetic old man who wants to buy
her brain because his own is decaying.
THE DOORMAN/
A tall dark man from the south of Morocco. An honest and
loyal man up until the moment that his employer abandons him
to terrible destitution.
As an employee he lost his home by default when the father’s
home was repossessed and took to squatting it and renting out
rooms to the destitute of the city (refugees from sub-sharan
Africa, from Syria, single mums chased from their families with
their young children). Nada finds that the sumptuous villa of her
childhood has become a squat, a crossroads of miracles where
shared by societal rejects who can’t afford a real hotel. As she
can’t kick them out Nada moves in with them and the poor
doorman becomes her trusted confidant.
AIDA/
A young, friendly woman with short hair and a friendly outlook
who dresses like a hipster. She has turned the page on her
artistic ambition but still has hope. She looks 10 years younger
than Nada.
She was her childhood crush during her rebellious period
and her music partner during the Metalhead days. Aida went
through hell during the incredible trial of the 13 Satanists. She
has since become a reconciliatory element in Nada’s life.
35

THE THIEVES/
The thieves that Nada will meet on her journey are mostly
people without a particular story, cowards, conventional, the
fruit of a society of cheats heirs to dishonesty.
Nada will knock at the doors of all those that robbed her father.
In the beginning she sets out to reclaim items of value but
becomes obsessed with the hunt and with finding everything
that is missing (forks, phones, photographs, lighters) as if she
was desperately trying to rebuild a memory of her father with
puzzle pieces of the objects she finds.
THE TOWN/
Casablanca is the background to our story, the canvas and also
a hide out for Nada who slowly makes peace with her heritage,
finding the places of her childhood again and the memories of a
trouble-free time. Casablanca is also a contrast to this, its dirty
streets, its noise, its construction sites like Sisyphus’ rock next
to the snow-white image of Canada – its open spaces and the
interiorised depression of Western cities.
37

DIRECTOR’S NOTE: IDIOCRACY:
“This is the man: a shit-pump through which other liquids pass
and where feelings like love, hatred, jealousy, desire, the sense of
beauty are created”
Nada Sibawayeh
I
In 2003 Morocco was shocked by the “case of Satanist rockers”
A bizarre event that left a scar on the country’s psyche,
a country that had just suffered a terrible terrorist attack and
was in the midst of transitioning from a very difficult reign. The
musicians that were arrested were part of a hard rock band. I
was also a metal head and young filmmaker and this case was a
slap in the face to our freedom of expression; to love, listen to
music and to create. It was an event that made as all paranoid
of the system that we were used to seeing condemning people
for their ideas but not for their musical taste.
I decided at this moment that this was my break up from society,
instead of resisting, break ups are always difficult and always
leaves scars.
Nada has lost confidence in the word she lives in and was
forced into exile by her well-connected father. Nada abandoned
her friends, her principles, and part of her soul. She decided to
live her freedom, use her body as she pleased, do everything
that her original society forbade her from doing. This postadolescent
rebellion will make her a pleasure seeking being.
A selfish kid who will torture her father until his death from
meanness and a sense of revenge. Once she loses her brain she
only has her heart to guide her thorough the consequences of
her split from her heritage and her freakish solitude.
Our societies try to crush us into the safety boxes of conformity,
but as most people aren’t blow up dolls, something usually
gets broken. Nada saw her dreams broken by a Kafkaesque
court case, her heart was broken by her father who forced her
into exile in order to save her and now she has to rescue her
brain that is rotting in a jar.
Brainless is an absurd comedy and fantasy about a person who
loses their brain and fights to maintain their physical integrity all
the while trying to keep their mental integrity.
Between Johnny got his Gun and Being John Malkovich, the
basic premise of the film is the only fantasist element of a story
that is told as a dramatic comedy in which we follow Nada who
heads progressively towards oblivion.
Nada is on a frantic journey, trying to escape the inertia of her
surroundings, the weight of a society and the desires of those
who court her brain.
Nada should be a mix of Gena Rowlands and Anna Karina with
a light touch of Audrey Hepburn. The writing style will have a
touch of Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, the direction fluctuating
with Nada’s rotting brain.
To sum it up Nada Sibawayeh is a bit of Woody Allen – during
the Zelig period with one slice too many of David Lynch’s space
cake…
This film is an allegory of the violence of a society that aggressively
pushes for conformity, illiteracy and consumerism to
avoid people becoming capable of independent thought, of using
their heads and maybe starting a revolution…
II
III
FIN
39

AD feature Executive producer
Documentary
Short Feature
JEAN DAVID LEFEBVRE AKA JEAN DAVID
Producer
Ta Mère – Touria Benzari
Hope – Boris Lojkine – (Fr) 53nd SEMAINE DE LA CRITIQUE CANNES FESTIVAL 2014 SACD AWARD
Française - Souad El Bouhati - (Ma/Fr)
Dangerous Parking - Peter Howitt (Gb) TOKYO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL BEST DIRECTOR
AWARD
Crédit Insuffisant – Hinda Oulmouddane –
Postal Card – Mahassine El Hachadi - TANGER NATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL JURY SPECIAL AWARD
Rock ‘n Bled – Touria Benzari –
Boomrang - Jawad Khaleb - (MA/BE)
Vux - Lamia Naji -
48H - Othman Mekouar -
Casablanca by Love - Amine Benis - TANGER NATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL JURY SPECIAL AWARD
Portrait of Kmissat - Michelle Medina - -
Les Mal Aimés – Amina Harrar & Mbarek Lhautal
Mahjouba – Myriam Bakir –
Fauteuil de cinéaste – Sophie Delvallée
Le jardin secret de Tsunami – Anas El Hatimi
Mi casa y tu casa – Vla & DagInsky –
Kechwalls – Vla
Les Damnés De La Mer - Jawad Ghaleb – (Ma/Be) BEST EUROPEAN MOVIE DOCUMENTARY AWARD
Harraga - Eva Manzano & Mario de la Torre -(Ma/Sp) PREMIOS GOYAS NOMINADO AL MEJOR
DOCUMENTAL
Comparse - Othman Naciri &Whalid El Mowtana 13mns -
Casablanca Casanegra - Nicodemo Gallucci 15mns
Burn Country – Ian olds – (US) TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL BEST U.S. NARRATIVE FEATURE
The Wakhan Front - Clément Cogitore – (Fr) 54nd SEMAINE DE LA CRITIQUE CANNES FESTIVAL 2015
Grand Départ – Nicolas Mercier (Fr)
Human – Yan Arthus Bertrand (Fr) 72nd MOSTRA VENICE 2015 OUT OF COMPETITION
Rabat – Jim Taihuttu (Nl) SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA EURO ARABISH FILM FESTIVAL 2012 BEST FILM
AWARD
Free men - Ismaël Ferroukhi (Fr) ABU DHABI FILM FESTIVAL 2011 BEST DIRECTOR
Men And Gods – Xavier Beauvois (Fr) GRAND PRIX FESTIVAL DE CANNES 2010
Un Balcon Sur La Mer - Nicole Garcia (Fr)
Journey To Mecca- Bruce Neibaur (Can/USA) MOTION PICTURE SOUND EDITORS USA 2011
GOLDEN AWARD
Marriage Arrangé - Rachida Krim (Fr)
Paris - Cedric Klapish - (Fr)
Tamanrasset - Merzak Alouach (Fr)
Jésus Christ - Gabriel Torrès – (USA)
Sahara - Gabriel Torrès - USA)
Hécate - Daniel Schmidt
Le voyage - Mick Andrieux
Le couple témoin - William Klein
Last Tango In Paris - Bernardo Bertolucci
L’Humeur Vagabonde – Edouard Luntz.
The French - William Klein
The Lorry – Margueritte Duras.
Tell me That You Love Me – Michel Boisrond.
George Who ? - Michèle Rosier.
Bof ou The Anatomy of a Delivery Boy - Claude
Faraldo.
HICHAM LASRI
Feature films
Headbang Lullaby - World Première BERLINALE
PANORAMA SPECIAL 2017
Starve Your Dog - BERLINALE PANORAMA 2016
World Premiere TORONTO TIFF 2015
The Sea Is Behind - World Premiere BERLINALE PANORAMA 2015
They Are The Dogs - World Premiere ACID CANNES 2013
The End - World Premiere ACID CANNES 2012
Novels
Sainte Rita - 2015
Static - 2010
Comic books
Fawda 2017
Vaudou 2016
Play
The Invisibles - 2017
Larme de joie - 2008
(K)Reve – 2007
CONTACT ABEL AFLAM | 61 Avenue Hassan II 20130 | Casablanca Maroc
+ 212 6 61 46 06 80 | jeandavid@abelaflam.com
41
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1293361/resume?ref_=nm_ov_res
www.abelaflam.com

BRAINLESS
A FILM BY
HICHAM
LASRI