78 minutes, 2014
Réalisation : Rosa ROGERS (Royaume-Uni) et Merieme ADDOU (Maroc)
Production : Redbird Productions (Royaume-Uni)

In the town of Salé, on what used to be Morocco’s pirate coast, a new generation of pirates set off with the county’s first professional circus. The Shems’y Circus is next to the poorest slums, and every year hundreds of young people go to the auditions there, looking for a different future.
The documentary “Pirates of Salé” follows four of them who are learning to live independently, to speak freely, to defy tradition and embrace a concept totally foreign to them: artistic freedom.

Rosa ROGERS has made several documentaries, many for Channel 4 and the BBC. Her films include: “The Greatest Show on Earth”, about a deaf dancer in the Rio de Janeiro carnival; “Dragon People”, the journey of a young photographer in today’s China; “Back to Bombay”, in which a young English woman with Indian roots sets off for her first visit to her family in India; “Bangladesh – Who will Pay?”; “Pirates of Salé”, about the Shems’y Circus; and “Casablanca Calling” about the first female imams in Morocco.

Born in Morocco, Merieme ADDOU studied law at the Mohammed V University. She lives and works in Rabat as a correspondent for Radio D-W. She is also a producer with the Moroccan production company Camino Media. She has worked as correspondent for Kuwait TV and Al Jazeera International, and as a producer for ADTV, Qatar TV, BBC 2 (“The Changing Face of Islam”), BBC Radio 4, Time Magazine, the Financial Times, BBC World, SABC, National Geographic Magazine, Fox News, CNN, and Bloomberg. She produced a documentary for national Moroccan television about Orson Welles and his relationship with the town of Essaouira.
“Pirates of Salé” is her first documentary as director.