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Conte
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VALÉRIE
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Screening Morocco
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Screening Morocco

Contemporary Film
in a Changing Society

Valérie K. Orlando

Ohio University Research in International Studies

Africa Series No. 89
Ohio University Press
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 © 2011 by the
Center for International Studies
Ohio University
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Orlando, Valérie, 1963–

Screening Morocco : contemporary film in a changing society / Valérie K. Orlando.
p. cm. — (Ohio University research in international studies, Africa series no. 89)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Includes filmography.
ISBN 978-0-89680-281-0 (soft cover : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-89680-478-4
(electronic)
1. Motion pictures—Morocco—History—20th century. 2. Motion pictures—
Social aspects—Morocco. I. Title.
PN1993.5.M8O86 2011
791.4309646—dc22
2010051519
To Aunt Irene in loving memory
 Contents

List of Illustrations ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xxi

Introduction: Moroccan National Cinema

The Making of an Industry 1

Chapter 1:
Theories and Polemics
Moroccan Films as Social-Realist Texts 19

Chapter 2:
Issues, Contexts, and “Culture Wars”
Marocains Résidants à l’Etranger (MREs)
versus Filmmakers at Home 37

Chapter 3:
Bad Boys, Drugs, and Rock ’n’ Roll
The Urban Stories of Morocco 71

Chapter 4:
Prison, Torture, and Testimony
Retelling the Memories of the Lead Years 101

Chapter 5:
Women’s Voices
Documenting Morocco through Feminine Lenses 122

Conclusion
The Future of Moroccan Cinema? 154
 viii / Contents

Notes 163
Selected Filmography 175
Bibliography 179
Index 185
 Illustrations

0.1. Poster of Berber film x

0.2. Cinéma Rif, Tangier xviii
0.3. Sidi Kacem Cinema xix
I.1. 7ème Art Cinema, Rabat #1 12
I.2. 7ème Art Cinema, Rabat #2 13
I.3. Cinéma Rif, fiches 14
I.4. Poster of CCM fifty years celebration 17
2.1. Nabyl Lahlou, director 61
2.2. Sophia Hadi, actress 64
2.3. Hassan Benjelloun, director 65
3.1. La Grande Casa, Twin Towers, Casablanca 75
3.2. La Grande Mosquée, Casablanca 76
3.3. El Kadia poster 78
3.4. L’os de fer poster 83
3.5. The slums of Derb Talien and
La Grande Mosquée, Casablanca 99
4.1. Lahcen Zinoun, director 105
5.1. Farida Benlyazid, director 129
5.2. Noufissa Sbaï, producer 138
5.3. Yasmine Kassari, director 139
5.4. Number One poster 148
Fig. 0.1. Poster for the Berber film De l’autre côté du fleuve, Cinéma de Sidi
Kacem, Morocco, 2009
 Preface

Screening Morocco: Contemporary Film in a Changing Society focuses on

Moroccan films produced and distributed from 1999 to 2010. Since
1999 and the death of King Hassan II, which ended les années de plomb
(the Lead Years, 1963–99), Morocco has transformed, socioculturally
and politically. Encouraged by the more openly democratic climate
fostered by young king Mohammed VI (popularly known as “M6”),
men and women filmmakers today explore the sociocultural and po-
litical debates of their country while also seeking to document the
untold stories of a dark past. Male and female directors such as Nabyl
Ayouch, Farida Benlyazid, Ahmed Boulane, Yasmine Kassari, Nabyl
Lahlou, Hicham Lasri, Narjiss Nejjar, Zakia Tahiri, and Lahcen Zi-
noun, to name only a few, present the face of an engaged multiethnic
and multilingual Morocco.
Their cinematography reveals a country that is dynamic and con-
nected to the global sociocultural economy of the twenty-first century.
At the same time, they seek to represent the closed, obscure past of a
nation’s history that has never before been told. Films such as Farida
Benlyazid’s Casablanca (2002); Kamal Kamal’s La symphonie marocaine
(The Moroccan symphony, 2005); Nabyl Lahlou’s Tabite or Not Tabite
(2006); Narjiss Nejjar’s Les yeux secs (Dry eyes, 2002) and Wake Up Mo-
rocco! (2006); Lahcen Zinoun’s Faux pas (False steps, 2003); and Ahmed
Boulane’s Les anges de Satan (Satan’s angels, 2007) expose audiences to
some of Morocco’s most pressing questions and issues. These include
 xii / Preface

human rights abuses, the former incarceration of thousands during the

Lead Years, women’s emancipation, poverty, and calls for social justice.
Such issues make up the fabric of a country that has come to be known
as “le Nouveau Maroc” (the New Morocco).
In general, films and documentaries made in the last decade are
significantly more critical and candid about Moroccan sociocul-
tural and political issues than in the past. During the Lead Years,
films would metaphorically or symbolically criticize the social situa-
tion, but filmmakers learned never to be overtly critical. Filmmaker
Mustapha Derkaoui notes in an interview conducted in the late 1990s:
“We don’t want to make subversive cinema. . . . It’s more that we must
make cinema an adequate means of denunciation, and not a force with
the goal of blind and intolerable subversion. . . . [In the past,] cinema
was constrained by the government’s fears at the time. . . . Officials
allowed much less experimentation and innovation in films” (Carter
2000, 68).1
Since 1999, films have probed the societal realities of contemporary
Morocco, unfettered and uncensored—that is, as long as filmmakers
do not overtly criticize the king and Islam and do not promote themes
that are pornographic. This shift to embrace a more social-realist cin-
ematic discourse—one that is critically analytical of contemporary
society—reflects the societal and political transitions that have taken
place in Morocco in the last decade. Increased political transparency
has fostered meaningful debates in the public sphere and opened up
Moroccan society since the end of the Lead Years. These debates have
encouraged Moroccans to look at their role and place as a modern
nation in an increasingly globalized world.2
This book discusses not only new thematic trends in Moroccan
cinema, but also how the industry has developed since it was first
founded during the French protectorate (1912–56). It analyzes issues
of language and distribution that have influenced how films are made
in the country. The Moroccan filmmaker, more often than not, has
the choice of making his or her film in Arabic, Berber, or French; and
this language choice becomes a defining hurdle in terms of marketing,
distribution abroad, and audience reception.
Questions about cinematic language extend to whether or not Mo-
roccan cinema can be considered francophone, as some scholars have
claimed. France’s role and the predominance of the French language
in certain sectors of the Moroccan population must be taken into con-
sideration when discussing cinematic production in the country. Yet,
 Preface / xiii

in reality, many of the films made in-country are destined for purely
Arabic-speaking audiences (however, they are always screened with
French subtitles). Often, funding dictates the language the filmmaker
ultimately uses to make a film. For the most part, recent large-budget
films such as Marock (Marrakchi, 2005), J’ai vu tuer Ben Barka (I saw Ben
Barka get killed, Le Péron and Smihi, 2005), and Le grand voyage (The
long journey, Ferroukhi, 2004), made primarily with foreign funding
and destined for both Moroccan audiences and an international mar-
ket, use French. Les anges de Satan (2007) and Casanegra (Noureddine
Lakhmari, 2008), although considered successes, were filmed almost
exclusively in Moroccan Arabic and were not distributed abroad. Cer-
tain, more “artistic” films, such as Nabyl Lahlou’s Tabite or Not Tabite
(2006) and the short film Faux pas (2003) by Lahcen Zinoun, use both
Arabic and French and specifically target Moroccan audiences.
My work seeks to assess to what extent the language chosen for
certain filmic dialogues is effective in conveying the filmmakers’ de-
sired messages. Additionally, do films destined for audiences primarily
at home dictate what language is used in a film? In Lahlou’s Tabite,
French is the language in which the protagonists (who are all dis-
sidents, exiled during the Lead Years) describe the despotic past of
Morocco, the brutality of the police officer Tabite, and whether or not
to go back to Morocco to make a film about their repressive experi-
ences. Yet Arabic is the dominant language once the dissidents return
home to confront their oppressors and challenge the status quo. The
issue of language is an important one in a society that is refashioning
itself in the global age. A central hypothesis of this book is that a film-
maker’s decision of whether or not to use French depends on whom
she or he wants to influence and what message is to be communicated
through a particular film.
Thematically, films in both Arabic and French have become in-
creasingly subversive in their content since the late 1990s. In the
mid-1990s, Moroccan cinematic discourse began opening up and
challenging sociocultural and political restrictions. At the dawn of the
twenty-first century, now even politics are fair game for Moroccan
filmmakers, as is evident in Nabyl Lahlou’s Tabite or Not Tabite, Hi-
cham Lasri’s L’os de fer (The iron bone, 2007), and Ahmed Boulane’s
Les anges de Satan.
This book analyzes films in the context of the social-realist genre,
which has been popular in African cinema since the beginning of post-
colonial filmmaking. African film scholar Manthia Diawara points
 xiv / Preface

out that filmmakers working in the social-realist genre draw on con-

temporary experiences in order to “oppose tradition to modernity,
oral to written, agrarian and customary communities to urban and
industrialized systems, and subsistence economies to highly produc-
tive economies” (Diawara 1992, 141). As with other filmmakers on
the continent, Moroccan cineastes scrutinize the polarities between
certain forms of modernity (which tend, in reality, to be neocolonial-
ist) and traditional practices that tend to hinder sociopolitical enfran-
chisement in African societies.
The social-realist context is useful in explaining how sociocultural
and political transitions in today’s Morocco are portrayed on the screen
through very divergent scenarios. For example, the 2005 film Marock
is about the sexuality and the coming-of-age of two teenagers, one a
Jew, the other a Muslim. The larger messages of the film concern cer-
tain identity crises rooted in religion, which are currently being de-
bated in the country. La symphonie marocaine (The Moroccan symphony,
Kamal Kamal, 2005) portrays the story of street people in Casablanca,
calling into question existing disparities in class, economic means, and
education. Où vas-tu Moshé? (Where Are You Going, Moshé?, Hassan
Ben­jelloun, 2007) retells the obscure story about the exodus of Jewish
Moroccans to Israel in the early 1960s. These films urge audiences to
think about the sociocultural, political, and historical realities of Mo-
rocco. In my view, contemporary Moroccan cinema accurately portrays
the reality of the country, and filmmakers have succeeded in generating
awareness and discussion within Moroccan society that impact and ad-
vance change as the country moves forward in the millennium.
Film scholar Sandra Carter aptly points out that “whether Moroc-
can filmmakers use melodrama, social realist cinema, auteurist abstract
intellectualist style, comedy or action-adventure, their films [always]
express something about the people and nation of Morocco” (Carter
2000, 74). Considering Moroccan cinema today, we can affirm that it
is a medium that functions as a sounding board for a society that is re-
making itself. Contemporary films are essential in the accurate docu-
mentation of past history and present realities. Through new cinema
magazines such as Cinémag (founded in 2008), as well as cinema re-
views written up in newspapers and newsmagazines such as L’Opinion,
Le Journal Hebdo, and TelQuel, Moroccan filmmakers provide forums
through which to analyze, reflect, and debate the contemporary issues
important to the vitality of cinematography and the larger society
of contemporary Morocco. The numerous Internet blogs founded by
 Preface / xv

young Moroccans interested in film, such as Blog Riad, Blog Rachid

Naim, Bladi Net, Save Cinemas in Morocco, and Blog Nadif, contribute
to ongoing dialogues that are, and will be, important to the sustained
popularity of Moroccan films at home.3
The films discussed in this book were chosen based on the ques-
tions and issues raised above. It must also be emphasized that, due to
the weak distribution structure of the Moroccan film industry, most
films are obtainable only directly from filmmakers or as pirated ver-
sions bought in the medinas of the large cities of Casablanca, Rabat,
and Fez. Therefore, my discussion of Moroccan films in this book
has been primarily dictated by what films I could find during sev-
eral research trips to the country. Lack of adequate distribution is one
of the principal reasons most Moroccan films are never screened or
even heard about abroad. This book discusses at length the challenges
faced by filmmakers and the film industry that have to do with fund-
ing, distribution, and audience attendance in Morocco. These hurdles
and how they are overcome will ultimately determine the viability of
the industry in Morocco in the new millennium.
The introduction to this book, “Moroccan National Cinema: The
Making of an Industry,” provides an overview of the history of Mo-
rocco’s national cinema. Although the Centre cinématographique ma-
rocain (CCM) was established in 1944 by the French, at the time of
independence King Mohammed V immediately recognized the value
of a solid cinematographic industry in building a postcolonial nation.
He therefore decided to invest heavily in it. In 1956, the monarchy
viewed film as a medium through which not only to shape the cultural
contours of the newly independent Morocco, but also to distribute its
propaganda. In the throes of nation-building, the king considered the
establishment of a state-controlled film industry as vital to uniting a
population that had the potential to factionalize into tribal, regional,
and nationalist fiefdoms.
Morocco, like all former French colonies, was influenced by France’s
conception of cinema as the “7ème Art,” an art form that was essential
to the cultural richness of the nation. Even before independence, many
Moroccan filmmakers (as well as other filmmakers from the formerly
French-colonized diaspora) traveled to Paris, France, to study at the
prestigious Institut des hautes études cinématographiques (IDHEC,
Institute for the Advanced Study of Film). In 1985 it was renamed La
Fémis (l’Ecole nationale supérieure des métiers de l’image et du son, Na-
tional School of Higher Education for Image and Sound Careers). From
 xvi / Preface

the 1950s, and subsequently long after decolonization, France has played
a significant role in the training of filmmakers from its former colonies.
Therefore, to this day, in terms of style, the influence of French filmmak-
ing has left its mark on the industry and filmmakers in Morocco.
Chapter 1, “Theories and Polemics: Moroccan Films as Social-
Realist Texts,” discusses how Moroccan filmmakers, much like their
colleagues across Africa, engage audiences through social-realist
frameworks that, as Manthia Diawara suggests, “thematize . . . current
sociocultural issues . . . [drawing] on contemporary experiences.”
Moroccan filmmakers who work in the social-realist style impart
to audiences that “the real heroes of social transformations in their
country are women, children, and other marginalized groups that
have been pushed into the shadows by the elites of tradition and mo-
dernity” (Diawara 1992, 141). Films such as La symphonie marocaine
(The Moroccan symphony, Kamal Kamal, 2005) and Les yeux secs (Dry
eyes, Narjiss Nejjar, 2002) are exemplary, social-realist films that give
voice to those who have never had one in Morocco’s past. The plight
of those who live in poverty and illiteracy with little hope of escape is
brought into the spotlight in order to generate awareness among the
more fortunate. Films such as those mentioned above demonstrate
that through the camera’s lens social change, cultural awareness, and
community activism are founded.
Chapter 2, “Issues, Contexts, and ‘Culture Wars’: Marocains Résidants
à l’Etranger (MREs) versus Filmmakers at Home,” explores the ques-
tions on many Moroccans’ minds: “Is Moroccan cinema francophone
or arabophone? Are films made by Marocains residents à l’étranger
(MREs, Moroccans living abroad) more apt to challenge the sociocul-
tural mores of Morocco than those made by filmmakers who prefer to
stay at home, facing intense scrutiny from government officials and
traditional audiences? These questions have defined the issues associ-
ated with Moroccan filmmaking in the last decade.
In the last ten years, films made at home have been shot primarily
in Moroccan Arabic and/or Berber. However, these films are always
distributed in the country with French subtitles in order to reach au-
diences from predominantly French-speaking enclaves in the large
cities of Casablanca, Rabat, and Fez. This sector of the population
is often elite; its children attend French-speaking high schools and
are sent to France to further their educations. French-language films
appeal also to those primarily French-speaking Moroccans who live
abroad but come home every summer to infuse much-needed money
 Preface / xvii

into Morocco’s GDP. The language debate for Moroccan filmmakers

is one that has dictated the parameters of funding and distribution
both at home and internationally and is certainly at the heart of Mo-
rocco’s culture wars as the country seeks to define and negotiate its
identity in the new millennium.
Chapter 3, “Bad Boys, Drugs, and Rock ’n’ Roll: The Urban Stories
of Morocco,” discusses the films Casanegra (2008), Les anges de Satan
(2007), L’os de fer (2007), and Casablanca (2002) in the context of the
symbolism inherent in Moroccan urban landscapes. Moroccan films
made since 1999 have increasingly used a cityscape, viewed as hostile
and violent, to study the sociopolitical ills of the country. Cities such
as Casablanca, Tangier, and Agadir provide backdrops against which
to expose the underbelly of Moroccan daily life replete with poverty,
unemployment, exploitation, and the hopelessness of the dreams of
Moroccan youth.
Chapter 4, “Prison, Torture, and Testimony: Retelling the Memories
of the Lead Years,” explores la mémoire refoulée (suppressed memory)
of the Lead Years, during which random incarcerations and disappear-
ances of thousands took place. In recent years, prisoners’ testimonials
have been the subject of many films. Cinematographic renditions of
the stories of former prison detainees—victims of torture and state
abuse—such as Jawhara (2003), La chambre noire (The black room,
2004), Mémoire en détention (Memory in detention, 2004) and Faux pas
(2003), offer depictions of the past that reveal the most abject spaces
of a secretive era. The fact that these films were widely distributed in
theaters across Morocco and, subsequently, were shown on television
without censorship, reflects today’s more politically liberal climate.
Chapter 5, “Women’s Voices: Documenting Morocco through
Feminine Lenses,” provides an overview of some of the most original
and engaging films made in Morocco by women. Many of these films
have never been distributed or screened outside the country. Since
the late 1990s, women have increasingly taken up their cameras to
film the transformations taking place with respect to sociocultural
traditions that impede women’s social and political enfranchise-
ment in Morocco. Yasmine Kassari, Narjiss Nejjar, and Leïla Mar-
rakchi, young cineastes making their marks on the industry, have
been inspired by older, more experienced filmmakers such as Farida
Benlyazid, Farida Bourquia, and Zakia Tahiri. These women are bold
and brash, as attests Nejjar, who insists, “I do what I want, I write
what I want like I want. . . . And I will continue to harass consciences
 xviii / Preface

Fig. 0.2. Cinéma Rif, Tangier, Morocco, 2009

by making films . . . films and films . . . so that we women will never

again be inarticulate puppets, wallflowers walking on eggshells, but
rather full-fledged citizens.”4 Films such as Leïla Marrakchi’s Marock
(2005); Nejjar’s Les yeux secs (2002) and Wake Up Morocco! (2006);
Yasmine Kassari’s L’enfant endormi (The sleeping child, 2004); Farida
Bourquia’s Deux femmes sur la route (Two women on the road, 2007);
Zakia Tahiri’s Number One (2008), as well as the earlier Women’s Wiles
 Preface / xix

Fig. 0.3. Downtown cinema of Sidi Kacem, Morocco, 2009

(1999) by Farida Benlyazid, portray Moroccan women as dynamic

and resourceful as they struggle to exist within the paradigms of a
very patriarchal society where they are often disproportionately af-
fected by illiteracy and poverty.
The conclusion, “The Future of Moroccan Cinema?,” reveals some
of the challenges that will continue to confront Moroccan filmmak-
ers as they investigate the transitions taking place in their society.
As film industries have shown in other developing nations such as
Brazil and India, film in Morocco will persist as a valuable medium
through which to scrutinize the sociocultural, historical, and political
changes taking place in contemporary society. Additionally, Moroccan
filmmakers, much like their Brazilian and Indian counterparts, have
made significant contributions to international cinema. Although still
somewhat limited, the increased visibility in recent years of Moroccan
films abroad, at festivals and in art houses, renders evident the indus-
try’s commitment to film as both an art form and a medium to be used
to generate awareness about Morocco as a modern nation. Moroccan
filmmakers should be commended for seeking to develop and impart
 xx / Preface

their own, unique concept of cinema with regard to themes, images

portrayed, and messages conveyed in the larger context of world cin-
ema. In the years to come, Moroccan filmmakers will continue to con-
front issues of language, audiences, and resources, all of which impact
how the industry will develop and what goals are set for the future.
Finally, the aim of this work is to reveal to readers to what extent
Morocco’s national cinema has demonstrated impressive vitality, rigor,
and sustainability over the last forty years despite the debilitating
Lead Years, an era of fear and repression. It is obvious that the indus-
try’s longevity is due to filmmakers’ dedication to finding the middle
ground between producing works that are politically committed to
changing mind-sets and pleasing audiences’ tastes. Despite enduring
hurdles stemming from issues that are primarily economic, Moroccan
cinema in the new millennium rivals national cinemas in the develop-
ing world, particularly those in India, Brazil, and Mexico.
 Acknowledgments

I wish to thank the following people and institutions for their support
of this project: the American Institute of Maghrebi Studies (AIMS),
for a generous grant in the summer of 2009 that allowed me to travel
to Morocco and visit with filmmakers and people in the industry; and
the University of Maryland’s Office of International Travel, for a
grant to fund travel to various cities and film festivals.
Special thanks to my University of Maryland colleagues and grad-
uate students in the Department of French & Italian in the School of
Languages, Literatures, and Cultures; and the Film Colloquia group,
particularly Caroline Eades and Elizabeth Papazian, for their con-
tinuing support of my work on African cinema. Warmhearted thanks
to filmmakers Hassan Benjelloun, Nabyl Lahlou, Hicham Lasri, and
Lahcen Zinoun, as well as producers Rachida Saadi and Noufissa Sbaï
for the interviews they granted me. Also, I would like to thank the
employees of the Centre cinématographique marocain (CCM), espe-
cially General Counsel Kamal Mouline, for his candid assessment of
the state of filmmaking in Morocco and valuable statistical informa-
tion pertaining to the current industry.
I would also like to express many thanks to Margaret Braswell,
who provided valuable information on women’s filmmaking in Alge-
ria; and to my friends and colleagues both in the United States and
Morocco who helped me during the research for this project: Safoi
Babana-Hampton, Ammara Bouchentouf, Soumia Boukhtil, Mitchell
 xxii / Acknowledgments

Cohn, Samira Douider, Youssouf Elalamy, Mohammed Hirchi, Majid

Kettaoui, Rida Lamrini, Mary McCullough, Abdellah M’dhari, Lucy
Melbourne, Jonathan Smolin, Larbi Touaf, Joëlle Vitiello, and Mary
Vogl. Many thanks to Tracy Sharpley-Whiting for her suggestions.
Heartfelt recognition must go to Belinda Hopkinson for her valuable
editorial suggestions, which greatly improved the manuscript. Last,
but certainly not least, I would like to thank my family, and my hus-
band, for their loving support during the writing of this book.
I am heavily indebted to theories worked out in my previous
monograph, particularly chapter seven in Facophone Voices of the ‘New
Morocco’ in Film and Print: (Re)presenting a Society in transition (Palgrave
Macmillan, 2009).
I would like to thank Cinergie for permission to use in chapter 5 a
photo of Yasmine Kassari from their website: www.cinergie.be.
All other photos were taken by me; and unless otherwise indicated,
all translations from French are my own.
 Introduction

Moroccan National Cinema

The Making of an Industry

Nous n’avons pas le luxe de faire un cinéma de luxe.

(We don’t have the luxury of making luxury films.)
—Hassan Benjelloun

In order to understand the development of Morocco’s cinematographic

industry, it is important to acknowledge how the country’s history
shaped it. Like many former colonized countries in the postcolonial era,
Morocco seeks to revisit its past by reconstructing its history to reflect
the voices that have been effaced by violence, human rights abuses, and
oppressive regimes since the end of French occupation in 1956. Since
1999, the country has turned many pages of its dark past known as les
années de plomb, “the Lead Years” of King Hassan II’s reign (1963–99),
in order to move forward to embrace the global age, all the while wres-
tling to keep its cultural uniqueness intact. Yet transition has created a
schizophrenic state that is continuously contradicting itself on a variety
of subjects, from matters of human rights and freedom of the press to
economic reform. It is for this reason that at one moment the liberal,
generally leftist intellectuals in media and the performing arts, produc-
ing in both Arabic and French on the page and on the screen, can openly
criticize the government, and the next be sanctioned in the courts,
obliged to pay heavy fines for having “offended” the powers that be.

Morocco’s Complicated Past:

Imagery, Identity, and Colonial Legacies

From 1912 to 1956, Morocco was a French protectorate. However,

some scholars explain that to call it a protectorate would be a “myth”
 2 / Introduction

because, as Jacqueline Kaye and Abdelhamid Zoubir point out in The

Ambiguous Compromise: Language, Literature and National Identity in
Algeria and Morocco, “French policy in Morocco aimed to undermine
both the secular and religious authority of the Sultan” in order to
install complete French colonial domination (1990, 11). France imple-
mented a “Berber policy” in order to weaken Arab-Islamic institu-
tions in the country. Typical of Western colonial regimes, “divide and
conquer” was the general modus operandi during French occupation
of the Maghreb. If a comparison must be made between the varying
degrees of French colonial imperialism in the region, then occupation
should be studied at the level of indigenous policies. In Morocco, as in
Algeria, Berbers and Arabs were pitted against each other in order to
subdue indigenous revolt. However, as scholars note, French colonial-
ism in Morocco was not as “genocidal in intention as in Algeria, for
there was never the intention of making [the country] a ‘colonie du
peuplement’ ” (a settled colony) (Kaye and Zoubir 1990, 11).
In Algeria, land was confiscated and people were displaced. How-
ever, in Morocco, unlike in Algeria, “the French cultivated the tra-
ditions of the Moroccan people” (Kaye and Zoubir 1990,13). By no
means should France’s colonial policy in Morocco be viewed as posi-
tive. However, the colonizers’ imprint on Morocco is vastly differ-
ent from that on Algeria because France’s colonial missions in both
countries were quite different. In Morocco, France concentrated on
encouraging a mythical realm, one immersed in Oriental imagery. It
was hoped that this fascinating space would entice the French adven-
turer to come and see the country. Morocco “became a vast national
park,” wherein “the traditions of its people became subject to the in-
terpretation of the French and were written down” by an array of Ori-
entalists who commercialized and packaged what they saw or heard
about in the country (13). It is for this reason that Morocco under the
French, and certainly due to the work of General Hubert Lyautey
(1854–1934),1 who was responsible for “managing” the culture of the
country, became the Oriental fantasy that Europeans craved (13).
This ideal led to a literary imaginaire, as Edward Saïd describes in
Orientalism: “Orientalism expresses and represents that part cultur-
ally and even ideologically as a mode of discourse with supporting
institutions, vocabulary, scholarship, imagery, doctrines, even colonial
bureaucracies and colonial styles” (1979, 2). The literary imaginaire
as cultivated by the great French authors of yore—Pierre Loti, André
Gide, Eugène Fromentin—writing in the late nineteenth and early
 Moroccan National Cinema / 3

twentieth centuries, would later be transcribed into the fantastical

images of Morocco promoted in films made by French directors. Co-
lonial filmmakers contributed to the “tropes of empire,” fueling the
Mission Civilsatrice that would endure well into the twentieth century
(Slavin 2001, 150). “The colonial film of the 1920s supported policy
goals in Morocco, and those of the 1930s praised the Foreign Le-
gion”; therefore, artistic imagery coupled with military power melded
in the minds of viewers and sustained the desire for colonial lands
(Slavin 2001, 4). Films such as Le grand jeu (The big game, 1934), La
bandera (The brigade, 1935), Pépé le Moko (1937), and La belle équipe
(The lovely team, 1938) drew on the imaginaire-inspired texts of ear-
lier French authors to highlight the unfettered possibilities the white
man could enjoy in the Maghreb (Slavin 2001, 166).
Particularly, Julien Duvivier’s La bandera, starring heartthrob Jean
Gabin as Pierre Gilieth, who murders a man in Paris and then loses
himself in the colonies to escape his crime, offers a quintessential ex-
ample of French colonial films of the era. On the lam, Gilieth flees
to Barcelona, where he enlists in the Spanish Legion and sets sail for
Morocco and the Spanish colony in the northern part of the country.
There he meets the alluring Aicha, a Berber dancer and sometimes
prostitute. In the meantime, he must elude Lucas, a fellow French-
man and a mercenary detective, who has also enlisted in the brigade
in order to pursue him. If Gilieth commits another crime, Lucas can
extradite him. Gilieth knows he is being watched. Aicha promises to
help him escape to the French zone of the country if he will marry her.
Before they leave, rebels from the Rif (depicted as marauding “Moors”
dressed in traditional garb) attack the Spanish fort. Gilieth performs
his duty to ward off the intruders and is promoted to corporal by his
wounded captain. Before he dies, the captain makes Lucas swear that
he will not continue to pursue Gilieth. As they are besieged, Lucas
and Gilieth, as well as their fellow countryman Mulot, try to hold the
fort, but in the end Gilieth is shot and killed. Lucas must break the
news about the fallen hero to Aicha.
Although its plot is simplistic, La bandera exemplifies the promi-
nent themes of the day. Morocco is viewed as a country where escape
is possible and where the white man can be a hero, a lover, and live by
his own rules without the fetters and constraints of the society and
culture of the Métropole (i.e., mainstream France with all its social
conventions and limitations). The image of Morocco as a vast theme
park for the colonizers’ unfettered exploits was established earlier on
 4 / Introduction

through the literary narratives of French masterpieces by Gustave

Flaubert, Eugène Fromentin, André Gide, Pierre Loti, and Emile
Zola.2 This exotic image was continuously reified on the screen well
into the twentieth century (Slavin 2001, 164).
Colonial films of the World War II era were steeped in French pa-
triotism as they defined the images of a vast empire so powerful it could
conquer the Nazis. Filmed in Algeria, S.O.S. Sahara (1938), directed by
Jacques de Baroncelli and starring Jean-Pierre Aumont, Charles Vanel,
and Marta Labarr, reveals the “Sahara as an immense desert, beautiful
and fascinating” but also treacherous for the “European who is, despite
everything, in danger of dying” (Megherbi 1982, 110–11). L’appel du
bled (The call of the village, 1942), by Maurice Gleize and starring Jean
Marchat, Pierre Renoir, and Madeleine Sologne, also focuses on the
colonial who is haunted by “le déséquilibre démographique des deux
camps” (the demographic disequilibrium of two camps), that of the
colonizer in a face-off with the colonized. These films clearly demon-
strate the colonizer’s mission as one that compels him to sacrifice his
well-being for the good of France’s empire (116–17).

The Cinematic Fragmented Text

Colonial films and literature in the early twentieth century drew upon
France’s reliance on the burgeoning field of ethnology to justify its
thirst for empire. Ethnography succeeded in mythologizing an en-
tirely new civilization in Morocco based on a set of “linguistic, ethnic
[and] religious definitions of identity” (Kaye and Zoubir 1990, 13).
Berber culture, viewed by the French as more mysterious because of
certain pagan and animist rites, was encouraged as a means of subdu-
ing the influence of Arab Islam, considered too unified, rebellious, and
generally hostile to the French civilizing mission. Berber marabout-
ism3 and fraternities, important in Berber belief, were encouraged in
order to undermine the importance of the Arab mosque in Moroc-
can culture. France hoped that by creating schisms between Muslims
and Berber-animists, contradictions would appear within Moroccan
society and thus make the people believe they were not unified by re-
ligious conviction (16). Morocco, therefore, would need the presence
of the paternal colonizer to maintain order.
France became the author of Moroccan history and identity, cre-
ating an ideal that would render virtually impossible discrimination
 Moroccan National Cinema / 5

between Orientalized myth and reality, fiction and fact. At the time
of decolonization, the mythical layers of a fragmented identity, cre-
ated by the colonial machine, remained and were later used during
King Hassan II’s reign. A master of dissimulation, he maintained the
status quo, manipulating and victimizing the population for years. At
the same time, the sustained high illiteracy rate (50 percent) has con-
tinued to contribute to Morocco’s impeded self-analysis, since many
people do not have the analytical tools to question and scrutinize the
difference between myth and reality and fact and fiction.
Today Moroccan literature and film still reflect the influences of the
French cultural imprint and the enduring imaginaire cultivated in colo-
nial times. Additionally, indigenous, primarily Berber oral tradition as
represented in many parts of North Africa has influenced the manner
in which narration, both on the screen and on the page, is construed
in postcolonial society. Both the French and the Moroccan indigenous
realms contributed to the contemporary, very unique, Moroccan multi-
cultural identity. Even today, Moroccan authors and filmmakers, seeking
to recapture the past through literature and film, waver between the
mythical and the real in their efforts to depict the reality of their history.
Constructing a world of images between the real and the surreal or un-
real creates a fragmented narrative space, whether in text or film.
Well-known Moroccan poet and author Abdelkébir Khatibi ex-
plains in his work the nature of what he views as Moroccans’ strained
identity, divided between fact and fiction. For Khatibi, living in a bi-
langue (dual-language) legacy comprising an Arab-Berber identity,
rich in mythical representations and cultivated in a centuries-old (pri-
marily Berber-influenced) oral tradition, and, at the same time, expe-
riencing the French rationalist model of education, has contributed
to a duality inherent in all aspects of Moroccan society, including the
arts, cinema, and literature.
The French model of récit is built from a body of knowledge that relies
on the individualist’s penchant for a controlled story line where real-
ity, recounted in linear fashion, is rendered first and foremost (Khatibi
1983). In La violence du texte (The violence of the text), Marc Gontard
notes that for the francophone Moroccan author, French has caused
“la dérégulation du système narratif ” (the disturbance of the narrative
system), thus exposing the tensions the author faces when he seeks to
narrate traditional oral and mythical tales. These are at the heart of the
society’s knowledge, in the written postmodern language of a foreign
voice (Gontard 1981, 66). The disjointed or deformed text positively
 6 / Introduction

blends styles, rendering Moroccan cinema singular, both thematically

and structurally. The “deregulation” of narrative systems, melding the
imaginary and the real, has become a thematic staple of the Moroccan
cinematic oeuvre. Benlyazid’s Women’s Wiles (1999), Nabyl Ayouch’s Ali
Zaoua (1999), Saâd Chraïbi’s Jawhara (2003), and Kamal Kamal’s La sym-
phonie marocaine (2005) are but some of the films made in the last decade
that draw on these two realms of being to construct their narratives.

The Development of the Moroccan Film Industry:

Past and Present

France’s conception of cinema as the “7ème Art” greatly influenced

the cinematographic industries of its former colonies. Newly liberated
nations continued to develop cinema according to the models left by
the colonizers at the time of independence. Britain bequeathed very
little in the way of a film industry because during its colonial era it
preferred to invest more in television and radio. Hence, countries such
as Nigeria, Kenya, and Zimbabwe did not cultivate national cinema
models like those found in West and North Africa, which had been
under French colonial rule.4 “Films directed by Africans in former
French colonies are superior, both in quantity and in quality, to those
by directors in other sub-Saharan countries formerly colonized by the
British” (Diawara 1992, 21). In the postcolonial era, France has con-
tinued to aid African cinema in its former colonies, thus, as scholar
Manthia Diawara points out, making “it easier for French distributors
to maintain their monopoly on the African market” (31). Very little
investment of this type has come from Britain to African anglophone
regions. This reality has its roots in the colonial past, as Nwachukwu
Frank Ukadike notes in his work Black African Cinema:
Different patterns of film production within francophone and
Anglophone regions derive from the contrasting ideological
pursuits of the colonial French and British governments. For
example, while the French pursued the so-called assimila-
tionist policy, British involvement with its colonies was prag-
matic business. Similarly, observers point out that while the
French “gave” feature film to its colonies, the British “gave”
theirs documentary. This notion supports the argument that
the cultural policy adopted by France encouraged film pro-
 Moroccan National Cinema / 7

duction in the francophone region whereas in the anglophone

region, where film production did not pass the economic pri-
ority test . . . the tradition of British documentary filmmak-
ing [remained]. (1994, 109)
France’s concept of film and what function it should perform in so-
ciety continues to influence national cinemas in the former French col-
onies. The historic role of film in the shaping of national identity also
created the futures of national cinemas in decolonized North and West
Africa. The “7ème Art,” first conceptualized by the French Lumière
brothers, Louis and Auguste, was a defining component of the cultural
contours of France at the end of the nineteenth century. From the
1890s to the mid-twentieth century, film played a critical role in deter-
mining colonial ideology both at home and abroad in the colonies. The
Lumière brothers were known for the cameramen they sent out all
over the world. Many traversed the well-established colonial empire
and filmed the environments of exotic others across Africa, Asia, and
the Middle East, sending the film stock back home to eager audiences.
These early films fueled colonial desire and were a pivotal mechanism
in sustaining the empire. In 1896, when the first Lumière productions
were screened in Lyon, “les chasseurs d’image” (image hunters) were
enlisted into Auguste and Louis Lumière’s legions to document the
wonders of the Maghrebian empire on camera (Megherbi 1982, 13).
The first decades of the twentieth century in North Africa and the
Middle East primarily featured passive groups of the colonized who
“served as subjects . . . for the film industries of Europe and the United
States.” Rarely were films produced by indigenous directors (Ghareeb
1997, 120). In 1922, however, Tunisian Albert Samama-Chikly made
Zohra, followed by the first full-length Egyptian film, Layla, produced
by a native Egyptian woman, Aziza Amir, who also starred in the lead-
ing role.5 The film was released in November 1927 and is accredited
with having launched the Egyptian film industry (Shafik 2007).
In Paris, La Fémis (l’École nationale supérieure des métiers de
l’image et du son),6 formerly known as the IDHEC (Institut des
hautes études cinématographiques), is still world-renowned for train-
ing filmmakers and has schooled a host of African filmmakers from
the former colonies. These include Sembène Ousmane, Safi Faye,
Férid Boughedir, and Merzak Allouache, among many others from
the 1950s to the present. From the initial days of the Lumière broth-
ers’ experimental films, France established the concept of a national
 8 / Introduction

cinema, which meant the state would always subsidize filmmakers’

works. The subsidy model, known as l’avance sur recettes, was adopted
by newly liberated African countries, which have since created their
own national cinemas in Algeria, Morocco, Senegal, and Tunisia.
In 1956, in the wake of independence, Morocco’s national cinema
was used by returning king Mohammed V to “contribute to national
consciousness and national awareness [by offering a means] to con-
struct a nation from a population accustomed to thinking only of tribal
and regional loyalties” (Carter 2000, 66–67). From early on, King Mo-
hammed V realized that film would play an integral role in spinning
the sociopolitical messages of the state’s and the monarch’s propaganda
in the newly independent kingdom. Cinema would be the key to devel-
oping the homogeneous, unified identity that state institutions relied
on to support public social sectors and the arts (Carter 2000, 66–67).
Founded in 1944 while Morocco was still a French protectorate,
the CCM (Centre cinématographique marocain), with studios in the
Rabat suburb of Souissi, became more active as a state agency im-
mediately after independence. In the beginning it timidly funded only
short films and documentaries, but later took over distribution and
funding projects for Moroccan films in the 1980s (Tebib 2000, 60).
Moroccan film history can be divided into three eras spanning the
monarchies of King Mohammed V and his son, Hassan II: 1956–70,
1971–85, and 1986–99. These time periods reflect the development of
cinematography in terms of technical advances, funding, and political
influences in the country. This past laid the groundwork for the vibrant
film industry of the new Moroccan cinematographic millennium on
which this book focuses.
During the first era of Moroccan filmmaking (1956–70), the na-
tional industry employed filmmakers as government employees, pri-
marily concentrating on making documentaries and newsreels as
trailers for foreign films or to be shown in film caravans that toured
the country (Carter 2000, 67). The CCM sent filmmakers abroad to
France, Russia, and Italy to learn the trade. At the same time at home,
the CCM established a studio, lab, film stock, and trained personnel.
Filmmakers, however, concentrated only on regional and develop-
ment issues that could be filmed as documentaries (Carter 2000, 67).
From 1971 to 1985, the second era of filmmaking, the industry
sought to develop an auteur group of young filmmakers, thus fos-
tering a more artistic style. Conversely, the market was increasingly
influenced by audiences’ desire for entertainment films. Under King
 Moroccan National Cinema / 9

Hassan II, censure played a role in dictating subject matter. The in-
flux of films from the United States, India, and Egypt cultivated a cer-
tain vision of the cinematic industry among audiences who more and
more expected to go to theaters to be entertained. The auteur style,
as in France and other parts of Europe, was viewed as too artistic and
“intellectual” and, although subsidized by the state as a valuable tool
“contributing to the national patrimony,” drew only small audiences
(Carter 2000, 67). Progressively, from the mid-1980s forward, mid-
dle-class cinemagoers, preferring entertainment over artistic style,
became a significant force that shaped the parameters of filmmaking.
Bollywood and Hindi films, certainly since the late 1980s, have culti-
vated Moroccan audiences’ tastes for lighthearted, entertaining films
that draw the masses to theaters.
By the 1980s, the “Third Cinema movement” of the 1960s and 1970s,
a revolutionary artistic offspring of burgeoning independent nations,
had begun to influence audiences across the globe as it increased the
popularity of non-Western films internationally. Particularly, African
films became more readily available in the United States and Europe,
thus fostering cinematographic exchanges that were transatlantic
and transnational. As elsewhere in Africa, social awareness, activism,
and technology contributed to encouraging a new vision of cinema
in Morocco that was more connected to an increasingly social-realist
ideology. Moroccans began to experiment with themes, challenging
the politics and conventions of their society as they sought answers to
postcolonial problems such as poverty, illiteracy, and corruption.
Ciné-clubs sprang up, as did literary, cinema-focused magazines
that discussed the film industry in the same manner as the French
journal Cahiers du cinéma. Young people became educated about the
power of film as a social-realist tool to encourage change in society.
Of course, this meant the Third Cinema movement was viewed as
dangerous by the monarchy, and filmmakers bore the brunt of censure
(Carter 2000, 67). Film subjects, if political, were only metaphorically
or symbolically rendered. Morocco’s youthful population in the late
1980s, as well as the slow crumbling of the Lead Years beginning in
the early 1990s, influenced changes in the themes depicted on Mo-
roccan screens. Increasingly, filmmakers dared to make films that
touched upon sensitive issues such as unemployment, sexuality (het-
erosexual and homosexual relations), and political corruption (70).
Films such as Ahmed Kacem Akdi’s Ce que les vents ont emporté (Talk is
easy, 1984), Mohammed Aboulouakar’s Hadda (1984), and Mustapha
 10 / Introduction

Derkaoui’s Titre provisoire (Provisionally titled, 1985), among others,

demonstrate the Third Cinema movement’s influence on themes and
styles, despite the oppressive Lead Years.
By the mid-1990s the social-realist, politically committed films of
West Africa, particularly those of Sembène Ousmane, Gaston Kaboré,
and Med Hondo, were influencing Moroccan filmmakers. Films shot
by cineastes in Moroccan Arabic destined for Moroccan audiences
were successful box-office hits. Hakim Noury’s Voleur de rêves (Thief of
dreams, 1995) tells the story of a man who confronts life after prison;
Fatima Jebli Ouazzani’s Dans la maison de mon père (In my father’s
house, 1997) discusses the very sensitive subject of lost virginity be-
fore marriage; and Nabyl Ayouch’s Mektoub (Destiny, 1997) depicts
drug use and police corruption.

Contemporary Moroccan Cinema:

Filming a Changing Society

Although the Lead Years were oppressive, the Moroccan film indus-
try, unlike that of Tunisia, never “officially” succumbed to state cen-
sorship. Paradoxically, “Tunisia is regarded as the Arab state with
the lightest film censorship. [But] films must be submitted to the
Ministry of Culture and a department of censors for approval” (Gha-
reeb 1997, 123). Conversely, in Morocco there is no such oversight
by the Ministry of Culture or the CCM. Yet, ever since the end of the
Lead Years, filmmakers, like authors and journalists, have practiced
self-censorship that denotes a fine “red line,” which journalist Driss
Ksikes, writing for the francophone newsmagazine TelQuel, claims
is alive and well in contemporary Morocco.7 Well-known director
Mohammed Tazi also evokes the “red line” when explaining how
censorship works in his country: “One can criticize many aspects of
life in one’s country as long as [the] red line is respected. The red
line involves respecting the state, religion, relations between men
and women and the classes. . . . However . . . this red line can be and
is moved around” (123). In an interview, Kamal Mouline, adviser to
the CCM’s marketing department, explained that Morocco has never
maintained a state censor. Filmmakers, he emphasized, “just know”
not to tread heavily on “religion, the monarchy, or into the realm of
pornography.”8
 Moroccan National Cinema / 11

In the last decade, Morocco has led the way in North African
filmmaking, crafting a cinematic industry that reflects the shifts and
transitions in its society as well as the larger Maghreb region. Al-
though attendance is decreasing, Moroccan filmmakers have repeat-
edly produced two or three full-length features a year in Arabic, Ber-
ber, French, and/or a mixture of all three languages. Recently films
made in Berber such as Les yeux secs (Dry eyes, Narjiss Nejjar, 2002),
have been funded by the CCM and widely promoted. The Tenth An-
nual Festival of Cinema at Sidi Kacem (April 23–27, 2009) devoted
its entire week to honoring Amazigh (Berber) films such as Itto titrit
(Mohammed Oumouloud Abbazi, 2008), Tamazight oufella (Moham-
med Mernich, 2008), and Sellam et Dimitan (Mohammed Amin Be-
namraoui, 2008). In the last twenty years, several homegrown films
have bettered the attendance records of North American, European,
and Egyptian imports. Notably Un amour à Casablanca (Love in Casa-
blanca, Abdelkader Lagtaa, 1991), A la recherche du mari de ma femme
(Searching for my wife’s husband, Mohammed A. Tazi, 1993),9 Marock
(Leïla Marrakchi, 2005), and Casanegra (Noureddine Lakhmari, 2008),
all of which set box-office records.10 Despite the increasing popular-
ity of films made at home, the CCM still must struggle with funding
strategies to finance an industry that generates little income and is
solely dependent on state subsidies.11
One of the enduring legacies of the structure of the cinemato-
graphic milieu, as modeled on France’s subsidy-based national model,
is that Moroccans have not figured out how to transform “the over-
all conception of the industry” (Carter 1999, 413). Inventive ideas
have not fostered sustainable ways of transforming filmmaking “from
being a beneficiary of State and tax monies into being a generator
of income, an employer of masses of unemployed, a supporter of the
State,” rather than a burden (Carter 1999, 413). Although theater
attendance is generally good, it has still decreased, falling from 33
percent in 1980 to 18 percent of capacity in 1995 (Carter 1999, 672).
According to Kamal Mouline with the CCM, each decade since 1980
has presented specific setbacks to the film industry’s theaters. In the
1980s, videotaping and rentals significantly reduced theater atten-
dance. In the 1990s, the “invasion” of the satellite dish (la parabole)
allowed families to stay at home and watch films from Europe and the
Arab world on satellite TV. And last, in the 2000s, DVDs and down-
loads from the Internet, as well as theater owners’ lack of foresight
 12 / Introduction

Fig. I.1. 7ème Art Cinema, Rabat, Morocco, 2009

in changing single-screen movie houses to multiplexes, have contrib-

uted to lackluster theater attendance.12
Defunct theaters present a monumental obstacle for Moroccan film-
makers trying to assure that their films will be distributed. While cinema
houses increased in number from independence to the early 1980s,
throughout the 1990s the country witnessed a decline in the number of
screens available. Between 1980 and 1993, 57 theaters were created, but
72 closed (Carter 1999, 671). From 2000 to 2009, the number of the-
ater “salles” (cinemas) dropped from 149 to 40. The majority of these
are in Casablanca, Rabat, and Fez, where closures have been routine
(Bennani 2010, n.p.). There are, however, several notable cinema houses
that have significantly contributed to the vitality of film as a stable cul-
tural art form. The 7ème Art Cinéma in Rabat (see figs. I.1, I.2) and
the Cinémathèque in Tangier, formerly known as Cinéma Rif (see fig.
I.3), have become vibrant centers for promoting Moroccan films. They
routinely host well-attended national film festivals (Tangier, Fez, and
Marrakech), seminars on film, and have been responsible for generating
national and international interest in filmmaking in Morocco.
 Moroccan National Cinema / 13

Fig. I.2. 7ème Art Cinema, Rabat, Morocco, 2009

Today considered in the larger category of Arab cinema centers, Mo-

rocco is second only to Egypt for the most films made per year. In 2009,
Morocco produced a total of fifteen feature-length films and four shorts
(Bennani 2010, n.p.). In the Maghreb, when compared to Algeria and
Tunisia, Morocco’s industry enjoys the most autonomy and has had
the least governmental interference since 1999. Whereas Tunisian cin-
ematic production in the past was touted as the most avant-garde and,
for better or worse, as the most “Europeanized” of the three Maghre-
bian countries, today Morocco has surpassed its Maghrebian neighbors
in quality, themes, scope, and number of films produced each year.13
From the outset, Maghrebian filmmakers distanced themselves
from Middle-Eastern, Arabic cinematic traditions. Unlike Egypt and
the Mashriq region (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan), Maghrebian cineastes
preferred to cultivate an original body of work that challenged what
was considered as “un vieux cinéma arabe” (an old Arab cinema) (Tebib
2000, 60). Maghrebian cinema, therefore, has always viewed itself as
particularly unique: “The role of Maghrebian cinemas is to represent a
cinema profoundly innovative for the Arab World” (60). At the dawn of
 14 / Introduction

Fig. I.3. Cinéma Rif, Tangiers, Morocco, 2009

the postcolonial era, Maghrebian cinema sought to combat the “cinéma

d’évasion hors des réalités” (cinema of entertainment out of sync with
realities) of the everyday, in order to evoke “un cinéma d’expression”
(a cinema of expression) that reveals a social, political, and cultural
authenticity. Morocco did succeed early on in creating both a “cinéma
intellectuel” and a “cinéma populaire,” thus pleasing a diverse array of
spectators (62). The many festivals, ciné-clubs, cinema conferences, and
blogs on the Internet generate a vibrant discourse about film across
the country, from large cities like Casablanca to smaller towns such as
Sidi Kacem. These forums have kept enthusiasm alive for an art form
that often promotes very quintessential Moroccan themes.

Language:
Is There a Francophone Cinema in Morocco?

The question as to whether or not Moroccan film may be considered

“francophone” depends on which Moroccan cinema is being discussed.
 Moroccan National Cinema / 15

The debate is certainly at the heart of Morocco’s culture wars, which

reveal two very divergent realms pitted against each other. Language
tends to dictate the paradigms of class, region, and social strata and
how these are depicted in film. In a 2005 interview, well-known film
critic Mustapha Mesnaoui reflects upon the split identity in the cin-
ematographic industry and in the larger country. This duality is due
to the industry’s insistence on using two different languages to build
a national cinema:
Moroccan society is composed of two principal clans. The
first is francophone, the second arabophone. I’m not talking
just about the language used but also about the lifestyle and
the mentality, which change according to these milieus. In
effect, on the one hand we have people who use French in
order to transmit their ideas and thoughts . . . on the other,
the arabophones who have done the same thing. In the case
of the first, they have more choice as far as newspapers and
magazines; the others are condemned to lapping up theoreti-
cal books from the East or works with religious tendencies.
Moreover, each regards the other as foreign and not as co-
citizens unified by the same visions and goals. What is con-
sidered entertainment by one may be perceived by the other
as depravity, even danger. (Ziane 2005, n.p.)
Mesnaoui alludes to much more at the core of the debate character-
izing “the malaise of Moroccan culture.” He faults Moroccan cinema
for not really having enough “principles” to respond to the shifting
sociocultural and political phenomena fueled by language occurring
in the country today (Ziane 2005, n.p.). One of these phenomena, of
course, is the rise of Islamic fundamentalism (intégrisme islamique) in
Morocco. Islamic radicalism is associated with highly rhetorical and
inflammatory classical Arabic shouted from the minarets of mosques
by radicalized imams. Most Moroccans feel that this Arabic does not
reflect the morals and values of their country or their religion. Cin-
ema is a highly effective medium through which to analyze and isolate
religious radicalism, while promoting the Marocainité (Moroccanness)
of a population that sees its country and culture as Berber and Arab,
multilingual, multicultural, Islamic, Jewish, and animist.
Questions surrounding language as it molds contemporary Mo-
roccan identity also influence cinematic funding. Whether or not a
film’s dialogue is primarily shot in French or Arabic has created a
 16 / Introduction

two-tier system that hinders the development of original film styles.

Films predominantly shot in French are usually funded, in part, by
France, other European-francophone countries, and/or Canada. Do-
mestic productions, particularly Berber-language films, rely on the
CCM and the filmmakers’ private resources (many filmmakers work-
ing at home have their own production companies). This does not,
however, preclude the CCM from proudly listing all Moroccan films
in its annual catalog, even those funded internationally and made by
filmmakers living abroad. In its most recent report, “Cinéma maro-
cain filmographie générale: Long métrages, 1958–2008” (Moroccan
filmography: Feature-length films, 1958–2008), the CCM makes no
distinction between films made and funded solely at home and those
produced with monies primarily from foreign backers (France, Spain,
Canada). In 2008, “50 Years of Filmmaking” was celebrated with spe-
cial editions of the filmography report promoted in posters touting
the CCM’s success in maintaining a viable film industry for home and
abroad (see fig. I.4).
The brochure for “Du fonds d’aide et l’avance sur recettes” (fund-
ing and subsidies), listing films made from June 2003 to November
2005, such as Le grand voyage (2004), Marock (2005), and J’ai vu tuer
Ben Barka (2005), indicates that all these feature-length films received
only minimal CCM funds.14 These films made by MREs (Marocains
résidants à l’étranger, Moroccans living abroad) incorporate a signifi-
cant amount of dialogue in French, opened almost simultaneously in
Morocco and France, and were screened immediately at international
film festivals such as Cannes, Venice, Montreal, and Toronto. Con-
versely, films such as Nabyl Lahlou’s Tabite or Not Tabite (2006), solely
funded by CCM funds and not as of yet screened outside Morocco, use
both French and Moroccan Arabic.15 The dual-language screenplay,
according to Lahlou, artistically fulfilled the goals of his film, but did
not aid in facilitating distribution outside Morocco, even though sub-
titles were provided each time the dialogue switched languages.16 The
seemingly split Arab-French personality of Moroccan cinema does
present difficulties in distribution, but ultimately contributes to its
sustained vitality, as Rachid Chenchabi pointed out more than twenty
years ago:
French is the language that has been the most successful in
profoundly penetrating the Maghreb. The result is that it is a
daily instrument of communication for a significant part of the
Fig. I.4. Poster for the CCM’s fifty-year anniversary
 18 / Introduction

population in the three countries, with regard to mass media:

journalism, radio, television, and cinema. (1984, 231)17
Since the late 1980s, “cinéphiles maghrébins” (Maghrebian film-
goers) have acquired their cinematic knowledge through Moroccan
cinema journals and reviews modeled after founding film texts such
as Cahiers du cinéma in France. These journals are, for the most part,
written in French or are bilingual, and have promoted increased in-
ternational critique and analysis of Moroccan cinematography. In
general, Moroccan cinema is discussed in the context of world cin-
ema as the reviews in cinema journals seek to encourage readership
from abroad.
Cinema magazines evolved in the late 1970s when most Moroc-
can newspapers also began dedicating pages to cinema news (Carter
1999, 331). Lamalif and Kalima, two outstanding newsmagazines, also
habitually included cinema sections in their pages. Magazines devoted
exclusively to film included L’écran marocain and Cinéma 3. Although
Cinéma 3 had a short run in the 1980s, producing only four issues
under the supervision of Noureddine Sail (currently the director of
the CCM), it did succeed in establishing a homegrown film critique
forum that was later continued in Moroccan national papers such as
L’opinion (Carter 1999, 331). The recently founded French-language
Ciné mag: Magazine du cinéma et de l’audiovisuel au Maroc (first edition
published in 2006) is the first magazine of the millennium dedicated
solely to cinema that offers in-depth interviews with filmmakers, both
at home and abroad, and critical analyses of current films.
Today, feature articles in francophone weekly newsmagazines
such as TelQuel devote a significant amount of editorial space to cul-
ture and the arts. Journalist and director in chief of Nichane (now
defunct), Driss Ksikes, who is also the nephew of filmmaker Nabyl
Lahlou, often writes extensive film reviews of the latest films that
are thought-provoking, critical, and informative. Overall, film criti-
cism is primarily written in French. A cadre of critics has succeeded
in founding a vibrant milieu of discussion that has departed from the
more-subjective views of those unschooled in cinema. The open forums
reflect the extended freedom of the press and the influence of capital-
ist consumption, which, for better or worse, increasingly drives the
industry in the current era.
 1

Theories and Polemics

Moroccan Films as Social-Realist Texts

Moroccan cinema, although conceived as a national cinema, devel-

oped quite differently from the cinemas of Algeria and Tunisia due to
ideals about nationhood, visions of identity, and a divergent colonial
experience. In order to contextualize the role and place of national
cinema today in Morocco, it is important to understand its develop-
ment in relation to the politics of the postindependence era. The three
countries of the Maghreb colonized by France—Algeria, Morocco,
and Tunisia—developed film industries based on the politics that
evolved during independence struggles and immediately after in the
burgeoning nations that resulted. Algeria and Tunisia organized in-
dependent states built on Marxist-socialist ideology, which, over the
years, became single-party republics. Conversely, in 1956 Morocco
reinstated its exiled monarchy, preferring to modernize the sultanate
rather than adopt another, more Western form of government.1
All three countries boast film industries that are vibrant and, despite
political conflict over the years, have continued to make thought-
provoking films. Algeria and Morocco have based their national cin-
ema industries loosely on the French notion of national cinema as
a socialized institution, funded almost entirely by investments from
the state. Tunisia, on the other hand, never officially established a
national center for film production, although filmmakers do obtain
financial backing from the Société anonyme tunisienne de production
et d’expansion cinématographiques (SATPEC, Nonprofit Company
 20 / Theories and Polemics

for the Production and Expansion of Tunisian Cinematography), set

up in 1957 to “manage import, distribution, and exhibition of films”
(Armes 2005, 20).
Although Tunisian filmmakers are more auteuriste—that is, they
succeed in developing their own individual styles—the state still
plays an important role in the development and sustainment of the
industry. In general, the concept of “national cinema,” whether or not
a center houses it, means that “cinema is both an industry and an art”
and serves the function of articulating the particular sociocultural
and political attributes of a nation. National cinema as a rule “does not
just standardize. [It] also particularizes” (Hayward 1992, 13). In all
three countries, from early on, cinema served to foster debate about
sociocultural (if not overtly political) issues as the countries shifted
from colonialism to being postcolonial nations.
Algerian, Moroccan, and Tunisian film industries were based
on the French model, but due to differing political credos in each
country, they developed very divergent philosophies, scopes, and vi-
sions. Of the three industries, Morocco’s is the only one to have been
founded by the French in 1944 and then almost seamlessly passed to
the independent state in 1956. Morocco’s film industry and the CCM
itself have emerged from an interesting blend of colonial legacy and
a unique view of nationalism (co-opted in 1956 by the monarchy of
Mohammed V). The industry, as it contributed to the politics of na-
tionalist movements at home, was also influenced by the Third World
movements of the 1960s and 1970s (and the Third Cinema genre
that was founded during this time). In the early days of postcolonial
filmmaking, an artistic and singular Moroccan flair, gleaned from a
rich multiethnic and multilingual heritage, set the country’s industry
apart from those of its neighbors to the east.

Colonial Legacies and Nationalist Movements

Moroccan film history has been shaped by the sociocultural and po-
litical climates of both pre- and postcolonial eras. Understanding the
country’s unique history during these periods allows us to delve more
deeply into the decisions made that would ultimately form Morocco’s
film industry in the new millennium. In 1956, at the time of indepen-
dence from France, Mohammed V, returning from exile in Madagas-
car, immediately understood the importance of film as a valuable tool
 Moroccan Films as Social-Realist Texts / 21

for propaganda that could be used to encourage a sense of national

identity, unity, and allegiance to his monarchy. Unity among tribes
and ethnicities (Berbers, Arabs, Muslims, and Jews) became the most
important aspect of his mandate and essential to promoting the Mo-
roccan state and monarchy as a single entity that would ensure the
prosperity of the postcolonial era. However, actualizing the goal of
unification between these divergent sectors proved to be a daunting
task in the early years of independence.
Although estimates vary, Berbers have always made up at least 40
percent of Morocco’s population. During the colonial period, Berber
tribes were typically used by the French to divide Moroccan loyalty.
The colonizers encouraged the belief that because Berbers had been
conquered by Arabs, they owed the Arabs no allegiance. The Berbers,
caught among Arab, French, and Spanish colonizers, never felt they
owed loyalty to any individual dominating force. At the time of inde-
pendence, in addition to the significant Berber population, another
prominent minority group comprised the approximately 300,000
Jews living in Morocco (by 2003 this number had fallen to 5,500).
In 1956, in addition to ethnic and religious divisions, Mohammed
V faced growing unrest in the Rif mountains from Berber tribes led
by Muhammad Ibn ‘Abd El-Karim El-Khattabi. Since the time of co-
lonial occupation, ‘Abd El-Karim and his rebels had waged attacks
against the French and Spanish occupiers in the northern part of the
country. In the years 1956–57, Berber tribes in the Rif repeatedly re-
volted against Mohammed V and the central government. Primarily,
these tribes rebelled against the king’s preference for a nationalism
that sought to homogenize and efface their Berber heritage. Contrary
to Mohammed V’s penchant for unity, “the main content of the Ber-
ber identity vision was based on the recognition of Berber particu-
larism.” As scholar Karim Mezran explains, the Berbers’ “rural base
caused the Berber elite to embrace a vision that contained a strong
social component. The words ‘Muslim Socialism’ described precisely
this mixed vision that the Berbers [sought] to bring forward” (Mez-
ran 2007, 38). However, calls for ethnic rights and claims to cultural,
ethnic, or religious specificity for Berbers and other groups living in
Morocco were thwarted at independence in the name of promoting
Moroccan unity.
In Morocco, as elsewhere across the Arab world, Istiqlal, the ultra-
nationalist Arab movement that built its ideology on strong Arabiza-
tion with ties to traditional Islamic organizations, influenced the poli-
 22 / Theories and Polemics

tics of independence (Mezran 2007, 31). However, the main leaders

of Istiqlal’s ideology in Morocco were not successful in unifying into
one party as had occurred in Algeria. Unlike Algeria, where the rebel-
lion against the French was led by the Front de la libération nationale
(FLN, National Liberation Front), a military and ideological move-
ment that later became the dominant party after 1962, Morocco’s lib-
eration movement from early on was factionalized. Istiqlal’s ideology
was adopted by Sidi Mohammed (who later became King Mohammed
V), conservative sectors of the population, and leftists who, through
the Union national des forces populaires (UNFP), headed by Mehdi
Ben Barka, sought to found a “vision of Moroccan identity [that]
was Arabist, anti-Islamic, anti-monarchical and pro-democratic” (35).
Ben Barka strongly believed that democracy in Morocco could be
achieved through “the action of a single Party . . . [and he] identified
the Istiqlal as the prototype of the ‘party-nation’ ” (35). Neither fac-
tion, however, would recognize Berber enfranchisement, socially, po-
litically, or culturally. Although Mohammed V sought to sustain unity
and rule in tandem with a state-government parliamentarian system,
he realized early on that Istiqlal and a socialist-modeled nationalist
party would be “his main rival for power and . . . a major obstacle for
the unity of Morocco” (41).
In keeping with the indigenous precolonial system, the monarch
of Morocco is also the “Leader of the Faithful,” and his dynasty is di-
rectly descended from the prophet Mohammed. The king represents
the state and the national religion and rules by divine right. At the
time of independence, Mohammed V refused to reduce his function to
that of an elected official and, although some say he did seek to nego-
tiate the omnipotence of his role in the building of the state, his word
remained the ultimate word of law as prescribed by God and Islamic
decree. Under his son, Hassan II, the dual role of king and religious
leader took on Machiavellian proportions. Mohammed V died in 1963.
From 1966 until his death in 1999, Hassan II ruled Morocco with an
iron fist, cloaking the country in the dark, secretive era of les années de
plomb, during which thousands of Moroccan citizens were victimized.
At the dawn of the Lead Years, journalist Zakya Douad, with her hus-
band, founded the leftist journal Lamalif (1958–88), which provided
a resounding voice of opposition in Morocco. Capturing the climate
of the 1960s in her work Les années Lamalif: 1958–1988 trente ans de
journalism au Maroc, Daoud describes the iron curtain that fell on the
 Moroccan Films as Social-Realist Texts / 23

country in 1966 and definitively ended any possibility of dissent from

opposition parties:
In 1966 Morocco was living political and ethical problems
that seemed insurmountable, the first deceptions of indepen-
dence. What we didn’t know then was that it was the end of
the national movement, the eve of the first riots in Casablanca,
the kidnapping of Mehdi Ben Barka. The regime was already
all-powerful and had begun to be rigid; the opposition frac-
tured and began to lose ground. We felt society falling back
into archaisms, the weight of the past coming up again, the
opportunists coming out, hearts and spirits drying up. This
gestating political drama would wall us in an ideology, still
hardy, on the left: Be cunning with adversity. To write was to
resist. (2007, 427)

The 1960s’ Revolutionary Philosophies

and Literary Influences on Cinemas in the Maghreb

In many respects, Morocco’s nascent nation faced the same challenges

as other formerly colonized regions. National film industries in the
Maghreb shared some similar paths as they plotted political courses
in the postcolonial era. These industries in many ways revealed the
same metamorphoses witnessed in national literatures. In the 1950s
and early 1960s, the nationalist goals of authors active in anticolo-
nial struggles in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia thematically focused
on conceptualizing strong nation-states that would rebuild colonized
societies left in shambles once independence had been achieved. The
rhetoric of nationalism prescribed strong, collective unity as the basis
for these new nations.
Nationalist agendas were inscribed in the literature (overwhelm-
ingly written in French) of the times by some of the most notable au-
thors and poets of the era of decolonization. These included Algerians
Kateb Yacine (Nedjma, 1956) and Mohammed Dib (L’incendie, The fire,
1954); Tunisian Albert Memmi (Portrait du colonisé précedé de portrait
du colonisateur, Portrait of the colonized and colonizer, 1955); Moroc-
can Driss Chraïbi (Le passé simple, The simple past, 1954); and Martini-
cans Aimé Césaire (Discours sur le colonialism, Discourse on colonialism,
 24 / Theories and Polemics

1950) and Frantz Fanon (Peau noire, masques blancs, Black skin, white
masks, 1951; and Les damnés de la terre, The wretched of the earth,
1961). Frantz Fanon’s Les Damnés de la terre compels the literati of col-
onized nations to write “une littérature de combat” (combat literature),
emphasizing that the duty of the author is “to call on an entire people
to struggle for national existence.” Combat literature “informs the
national consciousness” and provides the impetus for the formation of
the collective will necessary for liberation (Fanon 1961, 228).
The spirit of revolutionary literature supporting decoloniza-
tion was transcribed later into the burgeoning national cinemas of
newly independent countries. Frantz Fanon’s “On National Culture,”
a monumental chapter in The Wretched of the Earth, maintained that
a liberated country was only as strong as the culture it cultivated.
This culture had to be freed of colonial influences, afford citizens a
sense of attachment to their origins before colonialism, and define
new parameters that would found original sociopolitical and cultural
ideologies in the postcolonial era: “The crystallization of the national
consciousness will both disrupt literary styles and themes, and also
create a completely new public” (Fanon 1961, 239–40). The contours
of a nation’s independence therefore would be very much influenced
by the writings of socially and politically committed authors. Their
voices would be responsible for unifying the cultural pride necessary
for the new, liberated nation. The nationalist author is an “évolué”
(evolved), a writer of the elite who holds the responsibility of working
as an outsider, on the peripheries of a culture in the making. She or he
must influence the consciousness of the people, encouraging the shift
from a colonized state of mind to one that is liberated. The author’s
independent consciousness, however, is not born overnight. Accord-
ing to Fanon, a colonized writer’s sense of nationhood and national
consciousness is molded through three stages, or phases. These both
influence and mirror a people’s evolution to independence:
In the first phase, the native intellectual gives proof that he
has assimilated the culture of the occupying power. . . . His
inspiration is European. . . . In the second phase, we find the
native is disturbed; he decides to remember what he is. . . . But
since the native [author] is not part of his people, since he
only has exterior relations with his people, he is content to
recall their life only. . . . Finally, in the third phase, which is
called the fighting phase, the native, after having tried to lose
 Moroccan Films as Social-Realist Texts / 25

himself in the people and with the people, will on the con-
trary shake the people. . . . He turns himself into an awakener
of the people; hence comes a fighting literature, a revolution-
ary literature, and a national literature. . . . [Authors] feel the
need to speak to their nation, to compose the sentence which
expresses the heart of the people and to become the mouth-
piece of a new reality in action. (Fanon, 2002, 222–23).
The importance of this passage is reified in later treatises written
by film theorists from the postcolonial, developing world. In 1989, Te-
shome H. Gabriel, contributing a chapter to Questions of Third Cinema,
notes that Fanon’s theory on the importance of nationalist writing
for decolonization could be applied to filmmakers working in newly
independent countries across Africa. National cinemas were grounded
by the belief that “culture is an act of insemination” and would help
develop the socioeconomic and political ideologies of burgeoning
postcolonial nations (Gabriel 1991, 30). Gabriel explains that, like
Fanon’s “phases,” Third World filmmakers would move from a first
stage wherein “foreign images” were “impressed in an alienating fash-
ion on . . . audience[s],” to second and third stages “in which recogni-
tion of ‘consciousness of oneself ’ serves as the essential antecedent for
national and, more significantly, international consciousness” (31).
These phases/stages were conceived of within the parameters of
an industry that evolved from one founded by the colonial occupi-
ers in order to document the empire for France, to one that, after
independence, became a social institution necessary for the cultural
health of the independent nation. National cinema became more than
an art form; it was “a public service institution” run by “mass par-
ticipation enacted by members of communities speaking indigenous
language[s]” but who were invested in unifying the new nation
(Gabriel 1991, 33).

Three Maghrebian Cinemas

The Centre cinématographique marocain (CCM), founded in 1944

while Morocco was still under colonial rule, provided a very different
vehicle for the dissemination of state-building ideology during and
post French occupation than its sister countries, Algeria and Tunisia.
In Algeria, for example, “film was seen to form a vital part of the lib-
 26 / Theories and Polemics

eration struggle by the FLN, the army and the Algerian provisional
government (GPRA)” (Armes 2005, 15). It was an industry to be
“ripped” from the hands of the colonizers who, according to historian
Abdelghani Megherbi, had used cinema up to 1946 to promote “their
own colonial image” to and among themselves, while at the same time
spreading propaganda to aid in colonial domination of indigenous Al-
gerians (1982, 39). Stealing the industry from the colonizers in order
to use it against them became the modus operandi of the maquis.
Defiantly, even before the Algerian revolution had been won, films
such as Algérie en flames (Algeria burning, 1959) promoted a free Al-
geria as a “site of solidarity” between the maquis, fighting for libera-
tion, and French intellectuals in the Métropole who were sympathetic
to the idea of Algeria as an independent nation (Armes 2005, 15).
The Centre national du cinéma algérien (CNCA, Center for Algerian
National Cinema), which produced three feature-length films between
1965 and 1966, and the privately run company Casbah Films, headed
by Yacef Saadi, former FLN leader and whose own story inspired
the infamous film The Battle of Algiers (1965) by Gillo Pontecorvo,
proved to be important contributors to the Third Cinema movement
in North Africa. From early on, independent Algeria coproduced a
number of sociopolitically motivated films with acclaimed directors
such as Greek-born Constantin Costa-Gavras. Certainly the most no-
table of these coproductions is Costa-Gavras’s 1969 film Z, the story
of a judge who, as an investigator, tries to uncover the facts surround-
ing the murder of a leftist politician in an unnamed country (Armes
2005, 16).
From the outset, shortly after independence, Tunisia’s SATPEC
dedicated itself to importing, distributing, and exhibiting films. In
the early years following independence, Tunisia “had a vibrant film
culture, with a ciné-club movement which dated back to 1950” and
worked to internationally produce coproductions (Armes 2005, 21).
Tunisia’s film industry was a cultural art form well integrated into
colonial society from the 1930s forward. In the 1950s, ciné-clubs were
well established and concentrated their activities on documenting
every aspect of the cinematic milieus of the country. Although it never
founded an institution such as the CCM in Morocco or the CNCA in
Algeria, from its inception, the Tunisian film industry encouraged
an amateur filmmaking movement supported by the organization As-
sociation des jeunes cinéastes tunisiens (AJCT, Young Tunisian Film-
makers), founded in 1961. Similar organizations were not present in
 Moroccan Films as Social-Realist Texts / 27

Algeria and Morocco until much later. Tunisia was one of the first
liberated colonial countries to host its own film festival: Kélibia in
1964 and Tunis in 1966. These festivals continue to be held today
and are internationally recognized for the prizes they give to world
cinema filmmakers (21).
With regard to its development, Moroccan cinema differed signifi-
cantly from Algeria and Tunisia. It was insular and ill-equipped to
envision the production of feature-length films at the time of indepen-
dence. Where socialist-Marxist ideologues (FLN in Algeria; Bour-
guiba in Tunisia) used film as a vehicle in defining the parameters
of new Arab-Islamic postcolonial cultures within socialist republics,
the Moroccan monarchy changed a colonial industry into an infor-
mational state-run tool, focusing primarily on economic development
documentaries. At the time of independence, “the CCM [concen-
trated] . . . on the production of short films dealing with the sectors
deemed to be state priorities, such as information, education, agricul-
ture, and health. . . . The films made responded to the demands of the
different ministries which also commissioned newsreels designed for
state propaganda” (Armes 2005, 20). The first feature-length films
produced by the CCM were not released until twelve years after in-
dependence.
Moroccan films such as Le fils maudit (The damned son, 1958) were
highly moralistic, transmitting messages to audiences about the duty
of family, the necessity of faith in God, and the importance of a code
of ethics and allegiance to the nation/monarchy. In particular, this
film tells the story of a young adolescent who becomes a delinquent
because of negligent parenting. Vaincre pour vivre (Conquer to live,
1968), made ten years later, tells the story of Karim and unmasks the
challenges of emigrating from a small village in the Rif mountains to
the huge urban sprawl of Casablanca. The rags-to-riches tale follows
Karim from poor country bumpkin to a popular singer making his
fortune in the big city. The film also condemns that same urban land-
scape for corrupting those who come from the countryside. Quand
murissent les dates (When the dates ripen, 1968) tells the story of two
tribes divided by conflict until a new generation of young people, in-
spired by a collective and pragmatic spirit, is able to help negotiate
their tribal differences.
The rhythm of production of these homegrown films was slow,
and the filming techniques rudimentary. The poor quality of feature-
length filmmaking at this time was due to, as one critic points out,
 28 / Theories and Polemics

the CCM’s failure to train its employees, who were primarily used
to producing short documentaries “intended to extend [a] ‘folklore’
tendency which was appropriate [only for] the commercial tourist
short” (Armes 2005, 20). In the 1970s, the CCM funded only fifteen
films, and the majority of these productions were made by three film-
makers: Mohammed Abderrahmane Tazi, Souheil Ben Barka, and
Abdellah Mesbahi (29).
Narrative styles were influenced by Egyptian films of the era,
which were inclined to be highly melodramatic, focusing on the daily
struggles of traditional people against the challenges of the modern
world. For the most part, Moroccan films in the 1970s were nostal-
gic and free of political commentary unless it was aimed at the past
colonial occupation. The limited themes were primarily due to an in-
dustry that did not view itself as a mover and shaker of culture as
in Algeria and Tunisia and because, as A. Tazi remarks, filmmakers
believed their duty was to “craft” stories rather than invest in an “in-
dustry.”2 Much of this belief was due to the watchful eye of the mon-
archy, which closely monitored filmmakers’ themes. As Tazi remarks,
the “red line,” which one could never cross, always meant that one had
to respect “the state, religion, relations between men and women and
the classes” (Ghareeb 1997, 123).
The CCM’s insistence that filmmaking should be either to instruct
in documentary form or confectioned as a work of art, devoid of any
political underpinnings, hindered the industry’s development and
the making of any substantive films. The CCM as an institution re-
mained on the peripheries of culture, rather than as an integral part
of its production, at least until the end of the 1990s. Much of this had
to do with the Lead Years and the rule of Hassan II, which defined
the parameters of Moroccan filmmakers’ expression. This is not to
say, however, that Algerian and Tunisian filmmaking were without
censure. But because these countries were defined by socialist move-
ments supported by a commitment to Marxist ideology, filmmaking
was recognized as a vital tool for newly minted governments striving
to create strong national identities. Film was a medium that would
rally the people and convince them to forge into unknown territory.
Conversely, since Morocco reverted back to a politically traditional
system similar to the era of precolonial occupation, film remained rel-
egated to a peripheral domain, viewed as Western and foreign to the
conservative will of the monarchy. Cinema was an art form perhaps,
 Moroccan Films as Social-Realist Texts / 29

but not needed or necessary in the traditional daily life of the King-
dom of Morocco.
As a pure art form, Moroccan cinema was later described by Tu-
nisian filmmaker and critic Férid Boughedir as an example par excel-
lence of a “cinema of extremes”: one able to draw upon the glitz of
Egyptian musicals and the intellectualism of the French cinemato-
graphic tradition (Dwyer 2004, 116). However, the CCM’s view of
film as first and foremost an art form persisted in hampering their
commercialization. This view, in my opinion, endures today, thus lim-
iting the commercialization and distribution of films.

Third World Movements and the Politics of Opposition:

Was There a Third Cinema in Morocco?

Morocco’s path to independence, which in the end resulted in the

reinstallation of the monarchy, differed immensely from Algeria’s,
which favored a republic founded and ruled by the dominant FLN
Marxist, military, and political party. Also in contrast to Morocco, in
the 1960s Tunisia’s omnipotent Habib Bourghiba culled the country’s
seemingly Marxist-prototype government to found some of the most
progressive ideologies in the Arab world. Both countries were heavily
influenced by Third World movements, which tended to be social-
ist and populist, promoting independence from persistent Western
neocolonialism. The inherent values of these movements lay in their
platforms for equality and the effacement of class divisions.
In the Morocco of the late 1950s and early 1960s, the UNFP
(Union nationale des forces populaires, National Union of Popular
Forces) party and movement for social justice were very much present
and fostered political ideology favoring a socialist multiparty system.
However, from early on the party’s efforts to defy the political will of
the monarchy were stymied. Mehdi Ben Barka is perhaps the most fa-
mous oppositional political figure of this time. As leader of the UNFP,
Ben Barka was a symbol for the Moroccan populist Third World
movement, as well as a promoter of socioeconomic liberation across
Africa, Asia, and Latin America. He succeeded in rallying factions into
one cohesive party in order to oppose what he viewed as the conserva-
tive domination of Mohammed V. For Ben Barka, Istiqlal had to be a
“prototype of the party-nation” that would foster a multiparty system
 30 / Theories and Polemics

in the country (Mezran 2007, 35). However, Ben Barka’s version of an

Istiqlal multiparty system was “entwined with Arab nationalism and
the supremacy of Arab symbols” and therefore, as mentioned previ-
ously, fostered little unity among Berbers, Jews, and Arabs (36).
In the early 1960s Ben Barka lived in exile, threatened by Has-
san II, who had decimated all political opposition to the monarchy.
Traveling the world as a proponent of Third World movements, Ben
Barka’s contribution to international politics is most significantly
noted in his participation in the Tricontinental Revolution, which
was dedicated to opposing Western hegemony in South Asia (spe-
cifically Vietnam), Latin America, and Africa. As an international op-
position leader striving to combat Western hegemony, Ben Barka’s
legacy is entwined with those of Frantz Fanon, Che Guevara, and
Ho Chi Minh. Still today, the socialist opposition leader is an enigma.
The French-Moroccan film J’ai vu tuer Ben Barka (I saw Ben Barka
get killed, 2005), by Serge Le Péron and Saïd Smihi, documents Ben
Barka’s dedication to the social movements of the 1960s and his sub-
sequent assassination. As the film suggests, these movements fueled
an entirely alternative view of the world’s economic and social reality
as never before seen. They were also considered a threat to West-
ern capitalist systems and to totalitarian governments in postcolonial
countries.3
Third World movements, specifically the Tricontinental movement,
not only challenged Western socioeconomic and political systems,
they also promoted the rethinking of artistic production conceived
through Western models that had automatically been adopted by
postcolonial nations. Film became the perfect artistic medium through
which to experiment with new forms of artistic production, inter-
mingled with politically didactic messages. Notably, Third Cinema
proposed “the destruction of the old modes of conceiving cinema
and . . . old image[s] shaped by colonialism and neocolonialism” in
order to found “a new cinema [that depicted the] construction of a
throbbing, living reality which recaptures truth in any of its expres-
sions” (Armes 1987, 99).4
The Third Cinema genre questions power structures (colonial and
postcolonial), aims at liberation for the oppressed, whether socioeco-
nomically or politically construed, and proposes racial equality. Third
Cinema addresses questions of identity and community within the
nation about which it speaks and, most important, seeks to reveal the
hidden struggles of women, impoverished classes, minority groups,
 Moroccan Films as Social-Realist Texts / 31

and others who generally cannot speak for themselves or are not
given a voice by dominant power structures. It is a cinematic genre
based on an ideology of hope that new nations would articulate their
structures and institutions in a new manner, freeing themselves of
the former colonizers’ yoke and inefficient models.5 The founding of a
Third Cinema was viewed as an integral component of the emergence
of “popular struggle and a growing awareness of a distinctive Third
World identity [bringing] . . . intellectuals . . . into a new relation-
ship with the mass of their fellow countrymen” (Armes 1987, 83).
Films of this era sought to reveal the unjust power structures of the
colonial past as well as to uncover new neocolonial paradigms that, it
was feared, would continue to oppress long into the future.
Works made by filmmakers in Brazil, Cuba, and parts of Asia and
Africa exposed the power of film as a tool not only to educate but
also to give a voice to the masses. Early films that chronicled this be-
lief are numerous and include works by Sembène Ousmane (Senegal),
Mohammed Lakdar-Hamina (Algeria), and Med Hondo (Maurita-
nia). However, these filmmakers realized from the beginning of the
postcolonial era that state-run socialist industries were hypocritical,
promoting at first the “desire to change the lives of [their] people,”
but then subjecting their filmmakers to “censorship, imprisonment,
exile and enforced silence” (Armes 1987, 92). Filmmakers in Morocco
also were aware of just how dangerous the Third Cinema movement
would be viewed by the monarchy. Certainly during the Lead Years,
they bore the brunt of censure. If political themes were evoked, they
were only metaphorically or symbolically rendered until the end of
the 1990s (Carter 2000, 67).
In an interview during the Naples Festival I corti dal Mondo, held
in 2008, Abdelhatif Laassadi, member and spokesperson for the CCM,
stated that while under the French protectorate and until the mid-
1970s there was a censorship body, the main function of which was
controlling the distribution of foreign films in the country because
domestic productions were still rare at the time. Since the mid-1990s,
however, censorship—whether of foreign or domestic films—has been
almost nonexistent. For example, in 1997, during the Tetouan Film
Festival, CCM officials opted to screen Al-Massir (Destiny, 1997), by
Egyptian cineaste Youssef Chahine, a film that had been banned in
most countries in the Arab world due to its worldly theme that sug-
gested there had been peace and harmony between Christians and
Muslims during the twelfth century.
 32 / Theories and Polemics

Moroccan films of the 1990s tended to focus on love, life’s hard-

ships, and man’s incapacity to change his destiny. La plage des en-
fants perdus (The beach of lost children, 1991), Fiction première (First
fiction, 1992), La nuit du crime (The night of the crime, 1992), and
L’enfance volée (Stolen childhood, 1993), among others, offer glimpses
into the lives of average Moroccans struggling to find their paths in
the complexity of everyday life. Yet the paths taken by protagonists
are never politically motivated or openly critical of the monarchy and
the Moroccan state.
Successful Third Cinema movements were notable certainly in
Latin America, where the genre was used as a vehicle to promote
grassroots socialist ideals for its promising democracies.6 Conversely,
in Morocco the genre never got off the ground, primarily because
filmmaking was hampered by societal views that considered film a
Western art form and commodity. The monarchy preferred film to
serve its cause rather than contribute to cultural development. It was
not until the end of the 1990s that filmmakers embraced an auteur
independent style and began to challenge their audiences with so-
ciopolitical themes, encouraging them to view film as an important
medium for the expression of Moroccan culture, society, and politics.
Two films contributed dramatically to changing the scope of the
industry: Abdelkader Lagtaa’s A Love Affair in Casablanca (1991) and
Looking for My Wife’s Husband (1993) by Mohammed Abderrahmane
Tazi (Dwyer 2002, 118). Both films enjoyed the approval of audiences,
which assured significant box-office success. Despite the seemingly
socially taboo themes of sex outside marriage (A Love Affair), and the
underlying message that women should be emancipated from tradi-
tionalist practices of polygamy and repudiation (Looking for My Wife’s
Husband), both films heralded a new era of filmmaking in Morocco.
From now on screenplays would provide new socially committed mes-
sages documenting the transformations taking place in the country,
while also providing Moroccans a form and forum in which to raise
social consciousness as the Lead Years waned.

Social Realism and Moroccan Cinema:

Le Cinéma Engagé of the New Millennium

The Third Cinema movement of the 1960s can be credited with launch-
ing a new era in filmmaking. Perhaps the most prominent aspect of this
 Moroccan Films as Social-Realist Texts / 33

era was the “challenge [to] official versions of history” and the genre’s
ability to offer “an alternative to Western classical norms” (Gabriel
1991, 57). New films were born in that era and through the genre
reflected the social-realist views of filmmakers across the continent of
Africa. Films such as Sembène Ousmane’s La noire de . . . (Black girl,
1966) and Le mandat (The money order, 1968), followed by Xala (The
curse, 1973), opened up the world of didactic filmmaking destined to
sway the primarily illiterate masses who had been disenfranchised by
postcolonial governments. Less than fifteen years after independence,
postcolonial nations across Africa had already become ineffectual and
corrupt. Films of the 1980s, such as La vie est belle (Life is beautiful,
1986) by Ngangura Mweze; Nyamanton (1986) by Cheick Oumar Sis-
soko; and Zan boko (1986) by Gaston Kaboré, were critically acclaimed
for the social activism they promoted (Diawara 1992, 142).
Africans began to recount their narratives according to their own
value systems while openly criticizing the constraints of Western mo-
dernity and African traditionalism. On the heels of groundbreakers
such as Senegalese Sembène Ousmane; Tunisians Férid Boughedir
and Moufida Tlatli; and Moroccan M. A. Tazi, young Moroccan film-
makers were inspired by the end of the 1990s to write screenplays
that were pertinent to the daily lives of their fellow citizens. As the
Lead Years waned, filmmakers making films at home took the credo
of the social-realist style to heart. Through didactic dialogues, they
portrayed the realities of Moroccan society and culture, debating cur-
rent social issues in the country as well as in the Maghreb, on the con-
tinent of Africa, and in the larger Arab world. Film scholar Manthia
Diawara defines social-realist films as those that

thematiz[e] . . . current sociocultural issues. The films in

this category draw on contemporary experiences, and they
oppose tradition to modernity, oral to written, agrarian and
customary communities to urban and industrialized systems,
and subsistence economies to highly productive economies.
The filmmakers often use a traditional position to criticize
and link certain forms of modernity to neocolonialism and
cultural imperialism. From a modernist point of view, they
also debunk the attempt to romanticize traditional values as
pure and original. The heroes are women, children, and other
marginalized groups that are pushed into the shadows by the
elites of tradition and modernity. (1992, 141)
 34 / Theories and Polemics

Although warming to the idea of social-cultural and political-

activist filmmaking later than their colleagues in sister Maghrebian
countries, Moroccan filmmakers in the new millennium are making
some of the most thought-provoking films today in the Maghreb and,
indeed, in the Arab world. They have become engagés (committed), ad-
hering to the prescriptions of Fanonian logic for sociopolitical change.
The socioculturally and politically committed Moroccan filmmaker
confronts issues that represent the collective consciousness both in
and outside his or her country. They are critical of themselves as well
as of how they are perceived by others, notably Westerners. Contem-
porary Moroccan films represent an activism that extends beyond
the cinematographic realm to promote sociopolitical and cultural dia-
logues that force audiences to think about their environments, while
also introspectively reviewing the past.
Increasingly films reflect a humanist response to the challenges of
our era, which means, as Jean Bessière notes, the “individual is impli-
cated actively in the development of the world, admits responsibility
for what happens, [and/or] opens a future of action.” The filmmaker’s
engagement “designates an act by which the individual links himself
with his future being” (Bessière 1977, 13). Sociopolitically engaged
filmmakers invest in the pure ideal of committed activism; that is,
their works reflect the notion that they, as intellectuals, take a posi-
tion that is “willed” and determined by their dedication to becoming
“involved in the response to events” occurring in their society (Schalk
1979, 5). There are overarching assumptions that we can make about
socially committed filmmakers. They are politically active, outspoken,
possibly embittered because of “insupportable alienation” from main-
stream society (23). They are, in the true sense of the historically
French term engagé, committed to the “conscience of humanity” (27).
Moroccan films such as J’ai vu tuer Ben Barka (2005), Les yeux secs
(2002), and Marock (2005), as well as many others made since 1999,
are some of the finest examples of contemporary works of sociopoliti-
cally committed filmmakers who seek to explore society as ready and
willing to look critically at its past, present, and future.
Filmmakers since the end of the Lead Years adhere to new cre-
dos that include the pursuit of truth and accuracy in historical and
modern-day depictions of their society. They act as “position takers,”
functioning in “the field of positions” possible in an open and tolerant
society (Bourdieu 1993, 35). These positions concern the rights of
women (Hassan Benjelloun’s Jugement d’une femme, A woman’s trial,
 Moroccan Films as Social-Realist Texts / 35

2002); homosexuals and children (Nabyl Ayouch’s Ali Zaoua, 1999;

Whatever Lola Wants, 2008); human rights abuses and torture (Jillali
Ferhati’s Mémoire en détention, Memory in detention, 2004) in the past;
and poverty in the present (Kamal Kamal’s La symphonie marocaine,
The Moroccan symphony, 2005). Moroccan filmmakers today oper-
ate as free agents in a society of equal exchange that is not limited or
determined by cultural mores or political prerequisites.
As Morocco has become more economically competitive due to
IMF structural readjustment, strong trade agreements with Europe
and the United States, and infrastructure-building within the country,
the Kingdom of Morocco can most definitely be considered a devel-
oping country with GDP development on par with that of nations
such as Brazil. With “economic capital” comes “large social capital,”
which, according to Pierre Bourdieu’s theories on cultural produc-
tion, means that as a society grows materially richer “in economic,
cultural and social capital,” it then “moves into . . . new positions” that
comply with the “expectations of the cultivated audience” (1993, 68).
Moroccan filmmakers thus are able to define a habitus, a “system of
dispositions” that “empha[sizes] milieu over characters, the deter-
mining context over the determined text.” In the habitus, the film-
maker is “sole master” of a new “complete universe” (71). She or he
is free to make a personal interpretation of culture and to “utter ‘in
public’ the true nature of the field and . . . its mechanisms” (73).
Thus, it can be surmised that Morocco’s more open and unfettered
socially committed cultural production is linked to the prosperity it
has seen since its regime change and the conscious effort since 1999
by state authorities to commit to social change. Cultural production
and the functioning of society—made up of its politics and institu-
tions—are mirror images in the Bourdieuian sense. One reflects the
other and, in today’s context, one cannot exist without the other. Con-
sequently, film is both a product and a contributor to the sociocultural
and political realms of today’s Morocco.
Some of the best examples of the symbiosis between film and
society-culture-politics are found in films that delve into past infrac-
tions of human rights abuses committed during the Lead Years. Since
Mohammed VI’s coronation, and the formation of the IER (Instance
d’equité et reconciliation, Committee for Human Rights and Retribu-
tions) and the CCDH (Conseil consultative des droits de l’homme,
Consultative Council on Human Rights) in 2004 and 2007 respec-
tively, the documentation of infractions has not only become a way
 36 / Theories and Polemics

of establishing official public records of abuse, it also has provided

artistic inspiration. Films such as Jawhara (2003); Mémoire en déten-
tion (Memory in detention, 2004); La chambre noire, The black room,
2004); J’ai vu tuer Ben Barka (I saw Ben Barka get killed, 2005), and
Faux pas (False steps, 2003) (see chapter 4) flush out the mémoire re-
foulée (stifled memory) of the past in order to make audiences aware
of a history never before told, while also marking a point from which
to depart in order to assure that abuse never takes place again. Each
testimonial film on human rights abuses committed during the Lead
Years becomes a “travail de mémoire” (a work of remembering) for
the Moroccan people. The cinematic oeuvre made from/about the
past for present audiences serves to both appropriate and negotiate
the past so that each viewer will “progress in his own future indi-
viduality” (Zekri 2006, 200). Similarly, each film made about the past
becomes a “lieu de mémoire” (a place and space of remembrance) for
the collective consciousness of the people, preserving the narratives
of Morocco in the new millennium.
 2

Issues, Contexts, and “Culture Wars”

Marocains Résidants à l’Etranger (MRE)
versus Filmmakers at Home

Is Moroccan cinema francophone or arabophone? Are films made by

Marocains résidents à l’étranger (MREs, Moroccans living abroad) more
apt to challenge the sociocultural mores of Morocco than those made
by filmmakers who have stayed at home? These are two of the focal
questions associated with Moroccan filmmaking and the discourse
emanating from it in the last decade.
Over the past ten years, domestic films have been shot primarily in
Moroccan Arabic and/or Berber. However, these films are always dis-
tributed in the country with French subtitles in order to draw audi-
ences from predominantly French-speaking enclaves in the large cities
of Casablanca, Rabat, and Fez. This sector of the population is often
elite; its children attend French-speaking high schools and are sent
to France or other francophone European countries to further their
educations. Films in which the French language is privileged appeal
to those Moroccans living abroad—immigrants and their children—
who are primarily French speaking and come home to Morocco every
summer. The language debate for Moroccan filmmakers is one that
has dictated the parameters of funding and distribution both at home
and internationally. The debate is certainly at the heart of Morocco’s
culture wars, which reveal two very divergent camps pitted against
each other: one arabophone, the other francophone.
Films such as Marock (2005) by filmmaker Leïla Marrakchi, who
is an MRE, challenge the sociocultural and religious traditions of the
 38 / Issues, Contexts, and “Culture Wars”

homeland. Marrakchi’s depiction of the shifting sexual mores among

young people living in Casablanca, as well as the influence of West-
ern hip-hop culture, resonated with younger generations at home and
abroad. In general, MRE films describe the strains of immigration
and assimilation, and the alienation experienced by families in Europe,
as well as when they come home. Another example of a successful
MRE film is Ismaïl Ferroukhi’s Le grand voyage (The long journey,
2004), which focuses on the generational divide between a father and
his son in France. It also reflects the larger message that, regardless
of religion or ethnicity, there are universal values we all share that are
rooted in our common humanity.
Whatever Lola Wants, Lola Gets (2008) by Nabyl Ayouch, a third
example, offers an interesting twist to East-West relations through
belly dancing. Ayouch is a multifaceted filmmaker who has one foot in
Morocco and the other in France due to his dual heritage—his father
is Moroccan, and his mother, French. Where Ali Zaoua was made at
home, exclusively in Moroccan Arabic and designated for primarily
audiences in Morocco (although the film was later screened to critical
acclaim at several international film festivals), his most recent film,
Whatever Lola Wants, was shot in the United States, Morocco, and
Egypt in English, French, and Arabic. Filmmaker Yasmine Kassari’s
L’enfant endormi (The sleeping child, discussed in chapter 5) is set in
Morocco and focuses on a traditional folktale and milieu, yet is funded
heavily by the Belgians. Kassari, for the most part, resides full-time
in Europe. These filmmakers, as well as others, live a dual life—split
between the East and the West, the religious and the secular, and
the French and the Arabic languages. They view the world as global
citizens and are dedicated to democratization and humanist values in
their homeland as well as abroad.
Without a doubt, although MRE films are often significantly
funded by France, Belgium, Canada, and to some extent Spain, Mo-
rocco’s CCM also invests in order to prove that Moroccan-funded
productions can please international audiences. The CCM strives to
demonstrate its commitment to internationalizing its contemporary
cinema by offering moviegoers at home and abroad a meaningful
experience in film. Because the majority of films encourage univer-
sal humanist messages, they appeal thematically to all regardless of
nationality, race, religion, or ethnicity. Perusing the CCM’s website
(http://www.ccm.ma/), film aficionados notice that the center does
not distinguish between MRE directors and those residing and work-
 Marocains Résidants à l’Etranger (MRE) versus Filmmakers at Home / 39

ing exclusively at home. For example, Nabyl Ayouch, Yasmine Kas-

sari, and Leïla Marrakchi, among others, who primarily live in France,
Belgium, and elsewhere in Europe, are listed with directors who work
in Morocco.
The funding debate reveals interesting polemics that are con-
stantly surfacing. Films made by Moroccans living abroad enjoy a
certain status in the Moroccan cinematic oeuvre that is interesting
on many levels. Today, Moroccan “résidants à l’étranger” draw a sig-
nificant amount of foreign investment that is injected directly into
the Moroccan economy. In fact, film production is one area where
international development and investment by MREs are most evi-
dent. Since 2000, a film’s success on the international market has been
increasingly determined by how much funding and press it receives
from coproducers abroad. Thematically, it would be simplistic to say
that international funding dictates the subjects of films, as West Af-
rican filmmakers have claimed in the past.1 It must be noted, though,
that films made with international monies overwhelmingly tend to
reflect the ideologies and issues of the Moroccan diaspora rather than
the specific, narrow subjects of current interest at home.2
It is also true that Moroccan and, in general, Maghrebian film-
makers “run the risk of having to change [their] scenario[s]” when
financed abroad mainly because “the Western viewer becomes a major
factor in the filmic equation” (Rosen 1989, 36). In short, certain ste-
reotypes are constantly portrayed about the home country because
Europeans equate the picturesque and the desert sands with North
Africa, and MREs know that in order to screen their films in Europe,
certain leitmotifs must remain (the exotic is evident certainly in Fer-
roukhi’s Le grand voyage [2004]). Nevertheless, foreign-funded films
also reflect the more open sociopolitical climate of the New Morocco.
Since 1999, foreign-funded films have been regularly screened in Mo-
roccan cinemas, despite controversy (Marock in 2005), thus defying
more conservative, traditional Islamic sectors of the society. Young
audiences have emphatically supported international MRE produc-
tions because they associate them with what they think is most im-
portant: connection, not only to their own country, but to the outside
world. Filmmakers and audiences realize that “international produc-
tion implies international distribution, international audiences, [and]
international thinking as well” (36).
Several successful films made in the last five years stand as excel-
lent examples of the increased global awareness of the Moroccan film
 40 / Issues, Contexts, and “Culture Wars”

industry since the end of the Lead Years. All exemplify current so-
ciopolitical and cultural discussions and debates that are relevant and
important on both sides of the Mediterranean. The shifting sexual
mores and the influences of pop culture on young people as explored
in Leïla Marrakchi’s Marock and Nabyl Ayouch’s Whatever Lola Wants
resonated not only with Moroccan youth, but also with the immigrant
second and third generations in France’s major metropolitan banlieues
(large, urban suburbs that are ghettoized primarily by mainstream
French culture). For example, topics such as the strains of immigra-
tion, assimilation, and alienation in Europe, as well as the more inti-
mate, generational divide between father and son as depicted in Ismaïl
Ferroukhi’s Le Grand Voyage, allow audiences of disparate backgrounds,
ethnicities, and values to come together in the harmonious milieu of
the “worldliness” of the Moroccan cinematic text. This worldliness
has added to the appeal of Moroccan cinema at home and abroad.
In the last four years, ticket sales in Morocco for the top-selling
films made by both MRE filmmakers and those solely residing at
home are as follows: Casanegra (Noureddine Lakhmari, 214,473);
Abdou chez les Almohades (Abdou at the Almohades’ house, Saïd Naciri,
190,000); Amours voilées (Veiled loves, Aziz Salmi, 179,341); Ma-
rock (Leïla Marrakchi, 150,000); La symphonie marocaine (The Moroc-
can symphony, Kamal Kamal, 120,000); Whatever Lola Wants (Nabyl
Ayouch, 110,000); and Ex Chamkar (Mahmoud Frites, 106,696).3
This chapter offers a sampling of MRE films in contrast to films
made at home in order to explore to what extent issues such as fund-
ing, technical advances, and access to equipment for filming and mon-
tage influence how films are made. Are foreign-funded films more
successful at the box office? Do they benefit technically from foreign
funds? And do filmmakers who receive backing from abroad feel com-
pelled to make films whose themes extend beyond Morocco to appeal
to audiences on universal levels?

MRE Films: 1999–2008

Nabyl Ayouch’s Whatever Lola Wants (2008):
Belly Dancing Instead of Bin Laden
During the Dubai International Film festival in 2008, Nabyl Ay-
ouch emphasized that his most recent film was made with the goal of
attacking unfavorable stereotypes promoted in the West that are
 Marocains Résidants à l’Etranger (MRE) versus Filmmakers at Home / 41

associated with Arab peoples: “It’s so much better to give the image of
the Arab world through belly dancing than Osama bin Laden. . . . It’s
all a question of misunderstanding and it’s not because we are differ-
ent, that we can’t talk or understand each other.”4
Whatever Lola Wants is Nabyl Ayouch’s third feature-length film.
The film’s international appeal stems from its international settings
and cast, as the film crisscrosses the globe from New York City to
Cairo (however, many of the Cairo scenes were shot in Morocco). The
cast includes American (Laura Ramsey as Lola), Lebanese (Carmen
Lebbos as Ismahan), and Moroccan actors (Assaad Bouab playing Za-
karia, an Egyptian). The film was primarily shot in English and Ara-
bic, but all English dialogues were dubbed in French for distribution
in Europe, Morocco, and on DVD. At the time of this writing, the film
has yet to be released in English in the United States. Whatever Lola
Wants was produced with French-Canadian backing and additional
funds from the CCM.
Lola is an aspiring modern dancer who lives in Brooklyn and
works part-time at a post office in downtown New York City. In the
evenings, she moonlights as a waitress in an upscale restaurant where
she sometimes breaks into a song-and-dance routine, habitually sing-
ing her favorite song, “Whatever Lola Wants.” The meanings behind
the choice of this quintessentially American musical classic, written
by Jerry Ross and Richard Adler, are not lost in translation. The num-
ber was the title song of and was sung by Gwen Verdon in the popular
1955 musical Damn Yankees, which ran on Broadway for years and
was revived numerous times. The play and the song denote nostalgia
for an era viewed as simpler, more peaceful, and hopeful. Ayouch’s
America is one of big lights, big shows, and big dreams, and touts a
particular brand of American naïveté that is from a former era.
Lola’s exposure to the Arab world, like that of most Americans,
is limited. In the wake of 9/11, and as we are caught in the throes of
wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Ayouch’s views on American ignorance
about the world are not subtle. His protagonist is the “typical and
average American from Wisconsin” (which Ramsey, in an interview,
admits she is). Her fascination with Egypt and belly dancing comes
by way of her gay Egyptian friend and coworker at the restaurant,
Youssouf, who left Egypt when he was young and doesn’t plan on
going back because of his sexual orientation. The two spend evenings
in Youssouf ’s apartment watching his videos of the famous Egyptian
belly dancer Ismahan, who was forced to go into hiding after a public
 42 / Issues, Contexts, and “Culture Wars”

“incident” that was considered indecent. In the meantime, Lola meets

Zakaria (Zak), a young, rich Egyptian living in New York (working in
an undisclosed profession), to whom she delivers mail every day.
Just after they finally do fall in love, Zak decides to leave to go back
to Egypt, stating that Lola’s desire to dance instead of having chil-
dren and “being a woman” is behavior he cannot accept: “You don’t
want a woman’s life,” he tells her. Despite this affront, Lola decides
she will leave for Egypt to learn belly dancing from a real master
and also look for Zak. Youssef is shocked by her decision, telling her,
“What do you know about Egypt? . . . The only country you know is
Wisconsin.” Headstrong and sure of herself, she sells everything in
her apartment, quits her postal job, and hops onto a plane. When she
arrives in Cairo and finds Zak, he takes her to a hotel in a questionable
neighborhood where hotel managers can be bought off to overlook
the usual mandated “marriage certificates” needed for a couple to rent
a room. Zak, although enjoying the sexual interlude, tells Lola she
needs to go home and that Egypt is “no place for her.” He also makes
it clear that the kind of dancing she wants to do is for whores. Her
insistence that she doesn’t care about the cultural caveats associated
with belly dancing leads him to refuse her, claiming her lack of cul-
tural sensitivity is “typically American. . . . You come here and you
think you already know our customs.” He gives her money to return
home, and she throws it out the window as he drives off.
Lola decides to hunt for the famous dancer Ismahan to see if she
will give her belly-dancing lessons. After finding the elusive matri-
arch of the illicit dance form in a house obscured from view by a high
wall, Ismahan rebuffs Lola’s request to study belly dancing with her,
stating that Lola will never be able to learn to do the moves the right
way. As the film progresses, we learn that Ismahan is a broken woman
with a past who has resigned herself never to dance again. It is only
after Lola befriends Ismahan’s young daughter and wins over the
head manservant of the house that Ismahan finally agrees to lessons.
In order to earn money, Lola decides to see what dancing gigs she
can get in the local café-clubs in the neighborhood of the hotel she is
staying in. In the club adjacent to her hotel (where she has convinced
the owner to let her stay, even though she is alone), she becomes a
hit and, after several frustrating days, makes friends with the regular
dancers.
All her exploits are accomplished with her minimal knowledge
of Arabic and an American “can-do” attitude. While dancing in the
 Marocains Résidants à l’Etranger (MRE) versus Filmmakers at Home / 43

café-club, Nacer, a local celebrity and well-known impresario search-

ing for dancing talent to hire out to weddings and other high-class
functions, offers her a job. Lola’s big break comes when she is invited
to dance at a wedding for a rich bride and groom. Ismahan tells her
to be wary, suggesting that “it’s only because you are blond that you
are exotic.” A dancer’s fame has a short shelf life, she emphasizes. Lola
ends up being a success the night of the wedding, much to the chagrin
of the other dancers, one of whom states, “I didn’t know we were hir-
ing from the States now.”
As the film comes to a close, Lola the Outsider is finally accepted,
forcing her rivals to admit that she’s “not bad for a foreigner.” While
dancing at the wedding, she is also noticed by Madame Aïda, owner
of the famous Nile Tower, the crème de la crème of belly dancing,
cabaret-like shows. It is also the establishment where Ismahan danced
regularly at the peak of her career. At the Nile Tower, Lola becomes
the lead attraction, bringing in international crowds. Her routines
mix East and West, belly dancing and Broadway show dances that
are reminiscent of both Hollywood and Egyptian classic films. In
one scene, Lola comes out onstage in a top hat and spats, singing her
eponymous song. Following this act, she does a number in a tradi-
tional belly-dancing costume.
A resounding theme of the film is the universal values that exist
in our globalized world. As Carmen Lebbos explains in an interview,
the film is really about two women from opposite cultures who find
common ground. Ismahan is the classical Arab woman, whom Lebbos
describes as “closed” due to the societal norms to which women are
expected to adhere. Although from the more relaxed Lebanon, Leb-
bos maintains that her character is an Egyptian woman living alone
in Cairo, an excessively patriarchal society that is unforgiving and
judgmental. Lola becomes Ismahan’s confidante and only link to the
outside world. She slowly reveals to the young woman that because
of a prying photographer who took a picture of her as she shielded an
admirer, her husband had to divorce her. The admirer, who we later
learn is the impresario Nacer, has never stopped longing for her and
leaves notes by her door every morning. These are left unanswered
because Ismahan feels too ashamed over her divorce and broken home.
For her public indiscretion, she is treated as a “whore” and harassed
every time she ventures outside.
Ayouch’s film dwells on certain preconceived notions about men
and women, both Western and Arab. The contrast between what is
 44 / Issues, Contexts, and “Culture Wars”

viewed as “free” and open in the West, juxtaposed to the enclosed,

hermetically sealed Arab East, dictates much of the dialogue and the
context of the film. Arab men are often manipulators of women and
operate with machismo in order to seduce them. In one scene, impre-
sario Nacer tells Lola to forget her Egyptian beau because he will
never be able to be true to her due to the power his family has over
him and the stifling traditions of his culture: “When a Western man
falls in love, he marries who he wants; when an Arab man falls in
love, he marries someone else.” Women are free only onstage, in the
belly-dancing milieus of the seedy café where Lola works and finally
befriends her coworkers, and as stars in Nile Tower.
Ayouch’s choice of theme, which automatically precludes setting
the film in Egypt, demonstrates to Moroccan audiences that there are
“other” Arab countries that are much more hostile to women in public
space. Contrasting the two worlds of the United States and Egypt on
the Moroccan screen begs audiences to ask the question: Where do
Moroccan women position themselves between these poles of femi-
nine (dis)enfranchisement? Ismahan is also caught in the middle of
extremes and universalities about Arab women. Her slow emancipa-
tion from the fetters of Egyptian traditionalism and the weight of her
society’s judgment of her personal life are read as standard texts in
the gender-divided societies of the Arab world.
It is only after an outside influence, Lola, penetrates her dark, fore-
boding world that Ismahan can be liberated from the shackles of her
past. This liberation is physically portrayed in the slow changes in
her style of dress. In the initial stages of her rapport with Lola, she
continues to cover her head with a scarf and wear a dark, hijab-like
dress that covers her from head to foot. She explains to Lola how
to do certain belly-dancing moves from her chair, thus refusing to
engage physically with her past. It is only after being influenced by
Lola’s light American “go for it” naïveté and energetic will that Isma-
han finally comes out of her shell. The colors of her dresses become
brighter, her veil is shed, and her hair is let down, tied only with
bright ribbons. Her home, too, breaks the chains of the past. The dark
vines and trees that have grown up around the house are cut back
to let light in through the windows. Ismahan begins working in her
garden, weeding and cultivating her roses, which had succumbed to
years of neglect.
When Lola finally does decide to go back to America after her
successful run as leading belly dancer at Nile Tower, she is a woman
 Marocains Résidants à l’Etranger (MRE) versus Filmmakers at Home / 45

transformed. In a speech she makes to her adoring audience at Nile

Tower at the end of her show, she acknowledges that Americans in
general are naive about Arab cultures and that she must go home
to “bring Egyptian culture to the US” and to tell her fellow citizens
that Egyptians are “welcoming.” Yet before she goes, she publicly at-
tributes her success as a belly dancer to Ismahan, much to the shock
of the crowd, who is well aware of the fallen star’s past. Nacer, sitting
in the audience, realizes that he must convince Ismahan that he loves
her still and wants to be with her no matter the social stigma that
is attached. Ayouch’s message that individual happiness should take
precedence over sociocultural traditions and mores is blatant.
Nabyl Ayouch’s film, although lighthearted and glitzy, is more
about extracting and then studying human reactions to stereotypes
than about pitting East against West. His film is no more Arab than it
is American, as he focuses on the human connections that are possible
and that extend beyond barriers of race, ethnicity, nationality, and
religious conviction.

Leïla Marrakchi’s Marock (2005):

Being Jewish in Contemporary Morocco
Thirty-two-year-old Leïla Marrakchi’s first feature-length film, Ma-
rock (2005), reflects the current debates and sociocultural dilemmas
faced by a society in transition. Her depiction of the teenage love be-
tween a Muslim girl and a Jewish boy in the upscale neighborhoods of
Casablanca’s richest enclaves succeeded in opening up a nasty debate,
revealing Morocco’s own brand of “culture wars.” The film attacked
not only sexual taboos but also the larger questions of religious tol-
erance, archaic class structures, and the economic disparity between
rich and poor in contemporary Moroccan society. The film was criti-
cized on the right by Morocco’s conservative Islamic party, the PJD
(Parti de la justice et du développement, Party of Justice and Develop-
ment), as “attacking the sacred values of Islam and good morals,”5 and
hailed on the left by the more globally connected, urban youth of the
country’s most recent generations for having challenged, as one critic
notes, “the fundamental myths (religious and other) of the legendary
social hypocrisy of Morocco.” Needless to say, the film can be read as
a metaphor for a schizophrenic society that seeks to locate its contem-
porary identity somewhere between the vestiges of the past and the
possibilities of the future.6
 46 / Issues, Contexts, and “Culture Wars”

This analysis explores Marock as a societal metaphor that captures

the sociocultural climate of a country today striving to be tolerant
and inclusive as it seeks to vanquish the negative remnants of its past.
In the history of Moroccan cinema, few films made by either men
or women have generated as much controversy as Leïla Marrakchi’s
Marock. Upon its release, the film’s publicity posters alluded to its
basic content, which promised a tantalizing story of “youth . . . its
quest for liberty . . . its thirst for all that’s forbidden.” The filmmaker
tested her society’s increased openness as she compelled audiences to
think about the clashes inherent in her society along the lines of iden-
tity, nationality, religion, gender, and tradition.7 Although the script
is somewhat weak on story line—a basic boy-meets-girl love story
in which the boy, who drinks and drives too fast, dies in a car wreck
in the end—it is bold in the statements it makes about contempo-
rary Moroccan culture. Marrakchi’s film, with a budget of 1.8 mil-
lion euros, was a box-office success both at home and abroad. In 2005
in France, the film enjoyed an audience of 150,000 viewers and won
the prestigious “Un certain regard” prize at the Cannes Film Festival
(Boukhari 2006, n.p.).
Rita, a seventeen-year-old Muslim girl, and Youri, a seventeen-
year-old Jewish boy, are living life in the fast lane in the rich, bour-
geois areas of Casablanca as the Lead Years are waning (toward the
end of the 1990s). The time frame of the film is significant in that it
denotes the jeunesse of Morocco as situated on the cutting edge of the
new, more liberal reforms about to take place a few years later in the
post–Hassan II era. Their nightclubbing, drinking, and illicit sexual
exploits debunk the usual, picturesque views of rural and poor Mo-
rocco that are the general backdrops for the majority of Moroccan
films. Marrakchi reveals that, yes, there are very rich, elite people in
Morocco who live in Western comfort, drive BMWs and Mercedes,
occupy villas rivaling those found in Beverly Hills, and who are es-
sentially removed from the realities of 99 percent of the population.
These elite echelons of Casablanca are constrained by no barriers, as
revealed through the character of Rita’s brother, Mao, who killed a
street kid as he drove too fast through Casablanca’s poor neighbor-
hoods. To avoid jail time, Mao’s father paid off the poor family for the
loss of their child and sent his son to London.
Rita and Youri, high school students at Lycée Lyautay, a well-
known Casablanca French-speaking high school for the rich and
famous (modeled on the French public secular school), fall in love
 Marocains Résidants à l’Etranger (MRE) versus Filmmakers at Home / 47

right before the baccalaureate exams that will subsequently ensure

them access to the prestigious universities of Europe and elsewhere
abroad. Their education is in French and, even among themselves, the
language is predominantly French, provoking one critic to denounce
the film as the product of “the maneuvers of new lobbies that hide
behind coproduction. . . . [It is] a film [that] uses images to trans-
mit an ideology that defaces the values of Morocco and Moroccans.
It’s a means to hide acculturation and the new francophonie.”8 The
criticism was aimed primarily not at the sexually explicit scenes—
which a few years ago would never have made it past censorship—
but rather at what was perceived as the promotion of “a Zionist
message” against Islam.
One of the most provocative scenes for Islamic conservatives oc-
curs halfway through the film when Rita makes love to Youri, who
wears the Star of David around his neck. Rita can’t take her eyes off
the emblem, so Youri takes it off and hangs it around her neck, stat-
ing, “I’ll give it to you, so that you won’t look at it anymore and will
think of other things.” This act was viewed primarily by the PJD
Islamist party as a metaphorical conquest of Islam by Zionist opera-
tors. Marrakchi (who is married to a French Jewish film producer
and director) states that it was the scene that “a mis le feux aux
poudres” (literally translated: lit the fire under the powder keg).9
Scenes that seem more for shock value rather than screenplay de-
velopment are repeated throughout the film. Yet the filmmaker’s ul-
timate message (stated by Youri) that “we are all Moroccans first and
Muslims or Jews second” is monumental and resonates profoundly in
a country that, only a year before the film’s release, suffered deadly
terrorist bombings by Islamic fundamentalists in several Casablan-
can Jewish neighborhoods. Sitting in Youri’s BMW before going to
celebrate the successful outcome of their exams, the young couple
discuss the future of their relationship and how to reconcile religious
differences:
Youri: You Muslims want everyone to convert, but you don’t
make any effort [to convert] yourselves.
Rita: I don’t give a damn about their stupid religion. . . . All
I want to do is to kiss you when I want to, and where I
want to. . . . 
Further criticism was directed at Marrakchi for choosing to time
the events of the film during Ramadan, the holiest month of the year.
 48 / Issues, Contexts, and “Culture Wars”

Her characters show irreverence for the prescriptions of the sacred

month—Rita refuses to fast, claiming she has her period (which al-
lows her to avoid the ritual), and her father, who is seen and heard
very little in the film, states in a one-liner: “If I had to fast one more
day, I would have ended up killing someone.” These comments are
coupled with many derisive remarks about traditional rituals in Islam,
including the most provocative scene in the film, where Rita barges
in on her praying brother, Mao, as he lies prostrate on the floor. In
skimpy hot-pink shorts and tight-fitting, spaghetti-strapped tank top,
Rita ridicules her brother’s newfound devotion to prayer:
Rita: Mao, where’s the blue jeans that you . . . 
She stops. Before her, Mao, prostrate on the floor, is praying.
Rita: What’s going on with you? Did you fall on your head?
Have you gone crazy? Do you think you are in Algeria
or what? Are you going to become a “barbu” (an Islamic
fanatic), is that it?
Mao ignores her and continues praying without paying any at-
tention.
Rita: Dad ! Mom ! Your son has gone crazy! . . . Okay, where
is that fucking pair of jeans. . . . Okay, I found them,
thanks. . . . Hey, you’re pointing in the wrong direction,
Mecca is over there!
One of the most critical debates surrounding the film was whether
or not it should be censored. Should a film, viewed by many as at-
tacking the values of Islam and promoting a more Zionist message
as some critics stated, be censured in a country whose official reli-
gion is Islam, and whose leader of the state is also the leader of the
faithful? In an in-depth article published by Le journal hebdomadaire
in June 2006, the debate is scrutinized from the two opposing sides.
The article, “Marock: Le vrai débat” (Marock: The true debate), pres-
ents views from the left and the right of the censorship argument.
Pundits from PJD supporters, who condemned the film, and secular
intellectuals on the left of Moroccan politics, who supported it, are
interviewed. In a country professing to support democratic reform
and foster an open society, the debate certainly encompassed many
questions about identity, freedom of speech, and religious tolerance.
Abdellah Zaâzaâ, president of the Association RESAQ, which gives
aid to young people in poor areas, states that the criticism and call for
 Marocains Résidants à l’Etranger (MRE) versus Filmmakers at Home / 49

censorship of the film by the PJD party was a direct attack on those
who struggle for “the construction of a Just State” that is all-inclusive,
regardless of religious affiliation or ethnicity. He positively viewed
the film, stating that it captured the universality of the problems that
all Moroccans face:
Notably, I discovered that the young of the bourgeoisie con-
front the same problems as those in poor areas: sexual frus-
tration, the problem of virginity, the place of Jewish Moroc-
cans in this country. And this last point is the most important:
Morocco lost 300,000 of its Jewish citizens between 1950 and
1960. And now, when we speak of MREs, we only evoke those
who are Muslim and not Jewish.10
Exodus and immigration are also subjects of commentary in Ma-
rock, as is the case in Oú vas-tu Moshé? (Where are you going, Moshé?,
Hassan Benjelloun, 2007). Not only does the filmmaker refer to the
Jews who left in the 1950s and 1960s following Morocco’s indepen-
dence, she also alludes to the massive brain drain of young people of
all faiths who leave their country in search of a better, more lucrative
life in Europe, Canada, and the United States: “Tout le monde veut
se casser d’ici” (Everyone wants to get the hell outta here), notes one
of Youri’s friends. As Jews, Youri’s parents are contemplating leaving
Morocco for the United States because, as he tells Rita, “they’ve been
scared since the beginning of the Gulf War” (the first one, that is).
Perceived religious persecution, however, is not the only reason Rita
ultimately leaves for Paris to continue her studies after Youri dies and
her friend Sophia flees to Canada to get married. Rather, Marrakchi
points out that one of the tragedies of contemporary Morocco is the
unwillingness of those who have money and intellectual capital, no
matter their religion, to stay and invest in their homeland to positively
change the infrastructure, educational levels, and financial opportuni-
ties for everyone.
Marrakchi’s film obliges all Moroccans—Muslims, Jews, rich, and
middle class—to ask themselves some tough questions that will con-
tinue to expose one of the defining challenges that plague the New
Morocco: how to convince the population that these troubling societal
issues, as the journalists writing the article “Marock: Le vrai debat”
point out, are “real problems linked to our society.”11 Marock offers a
telling commentary on the undebated and not yet confronted realities
 50 / Issues, Contexts, and “Culture Wars”

of the past and the present. It clearly reveals that there are still many
skeletons in Morocco’s closet clamoring to get out.

Ismaïl Ferroukhi’s Le Grand Voyage (2004):

The Humanist Road Movie
Ismaïl Ferroukhi’s Le grand voyage (2004) is a sociorealist film text
reflective of our globalized era. Ferroukhi’s film is unique for the uni-
versal humanist messages it reveals. These include the international-
ism of Islam as a religion of peace and how important it is for people
of all faiths, growing up in the new millennium, to be tolerant. Fer-
roukhi has been one of the few filmmakers allowed into Mecca to
film the hajj. This singular experience aids the filmmaker’s goal of
promoting Islam as a religion that brings together millions of diverse
people from all corners of the world. Le grand voyage leaves a lasting
impression on audiences that effectively counters today’s stereotyp-
ing of Islam and Arab peoples in our post-9/11 world. Moreover, Le
grand voyage is a film that counters the West’s general view of Islam
as hostile and unforgiving and as a religion that promotes only bombs
and terrorism.
This analysis explores Ferroukhi’s film as one that offers a social-
realist commentary within a humanist perspective on the larger, inter-
national topics of our era. It is a film that scrutinizes the contemporary
challenges of our time and seeks to rectify the miscomprehension we
have about others (perceived disparities not only between Westerners
and Muslims, but also between Muslims and Muslims), all the while
dispelling the notion that we are incapable of living with one another
in peace. Ferroukhi’s film can be considered, as Edward Saïd remarks,
as offering a new “discourse [on] humanism” that challenges the “ca-
nonical” in order to propose “unwelcome interventions” of the status
quo that defines the world in which we live (Saïd 2004, 23).
Analyzing the film through its religious spirituality encourages us
to challenge the perceived notion that humanism can only be grounded
in terms of secularism as Saïd notes: “The core of humanism is the
secular notion that the historical world is made by men and women,
and not by God, and that it can be understood rationally. . . . That we
can really know only what we make or, to put it differently, we can
know things according to the way they are made” (Saïd 2004, 11).
Ferroukhi works against the notion that secularism is incongruous
with trust in God, spirituality, and divine intervention. Rather, his
 Marocains Résidants à l’Etranger (MRE) versus Filmmakers at Home / 51

film demonstrates what Saïd terms as a “worldliness” that offers both

a secular humanist and a spiritually determined hermeneutic system
of understanding.
In short, Ferroukhi demonstrates that the secular can be inte-
grated into the spiritual to create a space for hybrid humanism. The
film suggests that secularism should not have the monopoly on the
“promise of universality and reasonableness,” as Janet Jakobsen and
Ann Pellegrini point out in their volume titled Secularisms. Secular-
ism, because it is inherently moralistic, as the scholars note, can con-
nect “a number of elements—most notably, modernity, reason, and
universalism—into a network that has strong moral as well as de-
scriptive implications. The broad historical narrative generally as-
sociated with secularization develops these moral implications by
describing change over time” (2008, 4). Ferroukhi’s film offers an
excellent example of the increased global foresight of the Moroccan
film industry to engage in humanist questions since the end of the
Lead Years. It equally exemplifies current sociopolitical and cultural
discussions, debates, and revelations that are important on both sides
of the Mediterranean.
What is most profound about the themes of many contemporary
MRE productions is that they describe an international universality
that allows audiences all over the world to enter a realm that, while
portraying Moroccans, also renders their “being in the world” in the
context of a universal humanism that is identifiable for all audiences
regardless of nationality, race, religion, ethnicity, or secular beliefs.
Le grand voyage is Ismaïl Ferroukhi’s first feature-length film.
When it was first screened at international film festivals in 2004, it
was described as a “gentle, culturally loaded road movie.”12 It is the
story of a French-Moroccan teenager, Réda (who has lived all his life
in Marseille, France), who is forced by his very traditional father to
accompany him on a pilgrimage to Mecca. The defining difficulty
for Réda is that his father insists on making the trip by car. Midway
through the film, Réda obliges his father to tell him why he did not
want to go by plane. The father replies: “God says . . . to go by foot,
and if not by foot, by mule, and if not by mule, by car.” In short, it is
better to choose the most laborious path in order to retain the purity
of the hajj.
Réda also follows an arduous path. His involves assimilation into
secular French society as a young, second-generation Maghrebian who
shares little with his traditional parents’ homeland or their former life
 52 / Issues, Contexts, and “Culture Wars”

in Morocco. Obtaining his baccalaureate, an obligatory hurdle for all

French high-school-age youth but one that will ensure his entry more
easily into mainstream France, is hindered by his father’s insistence
that he accompany him on the religious pilgrimage. The baccalaure-
ate exam is only two weeks away, and for Réda it will be the second
and last opportunity to evade the immigrant life of the banlieues. The
young man’s love for a non-Muslim white French girl, whose picture
he longingly looks at throughout the film, is also another aspect of life
in France that his father finds difficult to accept.
Although Ferroukhi’s film often panders to clichés about immi-
grant life in France and, more generally, about father-son relation-
ships, such as the old not understanding the young or, as one Moroc-
can film critic states, “a road movie that operates under the contrived
notion that old people are smart and young people are big dumb ani-
mals,” the story does redeem itself both by the beauty of the camera-
work and by the more global, humanist messages that it reveals (Gon-
zales 2005, n.p.). In the throngs of people, scenes capture an amazing
event that takes place with “two million extras,” as Peter Bradshaw of
the Guardian notes.13 Islam, viewed as a religion that brings together
millions of diverse people from all corners of the world, leaves a last-
ing impression on audiences that effectively counters today’s stereo-
typing in the West.
Metaphorically, the unity of Islam is depicted with wide-panning
shots of young Réda being absorbed into the throngs of people as he
searches for his father, who does not return from the last leg of his
pilgrimage, the walk to the Kaaba. Réda’s absorption into the mass of
humanity present in Mecca is crafted with deft camerawork and wide-
angle aerial shots, showing the young boy in a yellow T-shirt and jeans,
very Westernized in his demeanor, being engulfed by thousands of se-
rene pilgrims in white robes and headscarves. Although standing out
in his Western attire, Réda is surrounded by a multiculturalism that is
also unified, metaphorically evoking the idea that faith allows believers
from all parts of the globe to come together in peaceful harmony.
Human compassion and forgiveness also play central roles in the
development of Ferroukhi’s screenplay. Both father and son are con-
fronted with the choice of whether or not to forgive each other, as
well as others they encounter along the road, after several adverse
incidents. As they cross the continents of Europe and Asia, making
their way to Saudi Arabia, their love and respect for each other are
repeatedly tested. In Turkey they meet Mustapha, who helps them
 Marocains Résidants à l’Etranger (MRE) versus Filmmakers at Home / 53

negotiate with the Turkish immigration authorities who stop them

on the border. When Mustapha expresses a desire to come with them
on the hajj, Réda’s father categorically refuses, acting on a premoni-
tion. His son perseveres in convincing him to change his mind, and
the Turk accompanies them but then is accused by the father of steal-
ing their money. Jettisoned from the car, the Turk is left behind, but
later Réda discovers that his father had forgotten (intentionally? we
are not sure) the money was hidden in an old sock. The son, who
never suspected Mustapha would steal, chastises his father for not
trusting a fellow Muslim as the father has always preached. Subse-
quently, Réda’s drinking and clubbing compel his father at one point
to try to leave him behind and embark on the rest of the journey by
foot. After both these incidents have tested their love for each other,
Réda asks his father: “On ne pardonne pas dans ta religion?” (Don’t
people pardon in your religion?). In the end, father and son are finally
able to find middle ground in their differences, recognizing that they
will always be separated by religious ideals, experiences, cultural ref-
erences, and generational divides.
A characteristic of many Moroccan films, Ferroukhi makes a point
of blending the surreal, the spiritual, and the real in order to depict,
as scholar Farid Al-Zahi notes, “a space for mystery and expectation,”
wherein the characters have “an opportunity for liberation from the
self and other.” This space becomes a milieu of negotiation for both
father and son because they are caught “between loss of sense and
meaning, and between the present and the future” (Al-Zahi 1995,
268). Both are confronted with the surreal possibilities in life when
an elderly Bulgarian woman stops them in the middle of nowhere,
gets into the backseat of their car, and then motions them to continue
straight ahead. The few words she speaks are incomprehensible to
the father and son. They finally leave her in a hotel because, as Réda
states, “cette vieille me fait peur” (that old lady gives me the creeps).
Long after they abandon her, he is haunted in his dreams and day-
dreams by her presence. When they are stuck in Sofia, Bulgaria, while
his father is hospitalized after having almost frozen to death in their
stalled car as they tried to cross the mountains, Réda swears he sees
her through a bus window standing on a street corner. Dressed in
black and the traditional attire of a past that is still present in Central
Europe, she is for Réda a harbinger of ill fortune, symbolically rep-
resenting the fragility of his father’s quest and his own misgivings
about their journey.
 54 / Issues, Contexts, and “Culture Wars”

Réda’s nightmares are also intermingled with the reality he is liv-

ing on the journey with his father. The gulf between father and son
is metaphorically rendered in the vast plains of desert sands that in-
creasingly separate them. Moving further and further away from the
secular, European culture he knows, Réda is hurled closer and closer
to the metaphysical and spiritual East of his father’s origins. The des-
ert is a surreal place of dreams and realities. At one point, Réda wakes
up in the sands of the Sahara to see his father, dressed in the tradi-
tional clothes of the nomads who live in southern Morocco, walk by
with a herd of sheep. When he calls out to him, the young man begins
sinking into the sand.
In reality, where the desert is a place of purgatory for Réda, it is
a haven for his father, offering a sense of renewal and open space in
which to breathe. As they approach Mecca, they meet other pilgrims
from all over the Muslim world with whom the father converses in
Arabic. His son remains on the peripheries of the pilgrims’ space, un-
able to communicate in his father’s tongue.
Language barriers also heighten the misunderstandings between
father and son. Réda’s knowledge of Moroccan Arabic is limited to a
few phrases he can use to respond to his father. His father’s insistence
on speaking only Arabic to him, even though he knows French, al-
ludes, on a larger scale, to the divide between immigrant parents and
their children born in France—a resounding theme in the works of
many MRE filmmakers. The first generation seeks to hold on to the
country of origin’s roots; the second wants only to assimilate into
Europe. Réda has more facility with English than his parents’ mother
tongue, which he uses to negotiate with passport agents, hotel own-
ers, and those he asks for directions. Ferroukhi’s subtext is that in
today’s global society, Réda’s generation understands the intercon-
nectedness that a lingua franca brings rather than the hermetically
sealed language of the parents.
Le grand voyage ends at the final destination of the father’s pilgrim-
age. When the old man goes to pray one morning at the Kaaba, he
doesn’t come back. His son later finds him in the morgue. His body
is washed and buried by Réda and the pilgrims they met on their
journey to the holy site. Réda takes back with him to France not only
the memory of his father’s last journey, but also a newly found com-
prehension of his own being in the world with respect to his religion,
homeland, and heritage.
 Marocains Résidants à l’Etranger (MRE) versus Filmmakers at Home / 55

Ferroukhi does not preach for the supremacy of Islam over other
religions, but rather emphasizes the diverse connections between men
and women from many countries and ethnicities that can be made in
peaceful harmony when they come together to practice their faith.
The film’s themes suggest that people are compassionate and that,
often in our contemporary world, we ignore this singular human trait.
Ferroukhi’s film text is both a secular and a spiritual humanist project
that, as Saïd notes, “constructs fields of coexistence rather than fields
of battle” (2004, 141). Such a work must promote the idea that, again
according to Saïd, “peace cannot exist without equality; this is an in-
tellectual value desperately in need of reiteration, demonstration, and
reinforcement” (142).

Films at Home: Taboos, Controversies, Conflicts,

and Revisiting the Past in the Present
While MRE films have been shown at film festivals and on theater
screens in the United States and Europe in increasing numbers in
the last few years, so-called Moroccan cinema at home, the films not
distributed outside the country’s borders, must confront its own set
of unique hurdles. Film critic Mustapha Mesnaoui claims in a 2005
interview in the newspaper Le matin that Moroccan film lacks vision,
and this is one of the reasons for waning audience attendance. He
created quite a scandal in cinema circles when he dismissed the en-
tire industry by stating, “Nous n’avons pas de cinéma marocain” (We
don’t have a Moroccan cinema) (Ziane 2005, n.p.). Mesnaoui accuses
Moroccan filmmakers of avoiding their sociocultural responsibilities.
Additionally he claims that cinema plays no role in shaping policy in
civic society. Contrary to his views, Moroccan cinema is very socio-
politically engaged and reflects the transitions the country is making
and enduring in contemporary times.
Since 1999 filmmakers, both male and female, working solely in the
country have tackled a host of topics that ten years ago would never
have been put on the screen. While there are many films that offer
engaging commentary on transitions taking place in Morocco, the
following films most aptly capture the polemics of the sociocultural
and political shifts in society since the end of the Lead Years. These
films also prove Mesnaoui’s criticism is ill-placed. Indeed, Moroccan
cinema is sociopolitically committed and filmmakers do work as social
 56 / Issues, Contexts, and “Culture Wars”

activists, seeking to educate their audiences about their own history,

politics, and religion in the present as well as in the past.
The screenplays of the films presented in the second half of this
chapter were shot primarily in Moroccan dialectical Arabic, filmed
entirely in Morocco, and date from 1999 to the present. They offer
audiences didactic, social-realist screenplays depicting life in contem-
porary times or provide revisions of stories that need to be retold to
favor the voices of the unheard: the poor female victims of corrupt po-
licemen in Tabite or Not Tabite; the Jewish exodus from Morocco im-
mediately after independence in the early 1960s in Où vas-tu Moshé?;
and the poverty and despair conquered by the power of friendship as
portrayed in La symphonie marocaine. These films do not propose any
prescriptions for solutions to the host of socioeconomic disparities
they explore or rectification for the errors and abuses of the past.
Rather, they expose issues that filmmakers believe are crucial for so-
ciety to address if progress is to be made. They equally challenge
certain models adopted in the name of modernity and cast a critical
eye on contemporary culture.
The events, for example, on which Nabyl Lahlou’s Tabite or Not
Tabite are based have been referenced in film magazines as compris-
ing a historical moment that gripped the entire population in a “grave
tourbillon [qui] pollua l’atmosphère du Maroc” (a grave whirlwind
that polluted the atmosphere of Morocco) (Tizourgni and Guennouni
2005, n.p.). “L’affaire Tabite,” although focusing on a past event, re-
veals important questions about power and the abuse of it that still
haunt Morocco in the present. The film reminds audiences of the hur-
dles persistently facing those striving to build a democratic society
that is just and free of corruption.

Kamal Kamal’s La Symphonie Marocaine (2005):

Only Music Can Save the World
Kamal Kamal has become internationally known for his very atypi-
cal films. Director and producer of two feature-length productions,
Tayf Nizar (Nizar’s Ghost, 2001) and La symphonie marocaine (2005),
Kamal Kamal focuses on the lost, the marginalized, and the dark spec-
ters that continue to haunt Moroccan society. In 2007, as organizer of
a colloquium on Moroccan film, the filmmaker emphasized that “film
can’t change the world, but can change ideas.”14 Tayf Nizar, made in
2001 and distributed across Morocco in 2002, revisits atrocities com-
 Marocains Résidants à l’Etranger (MRE) versus Filmmakers at Home / 57

mitted during the Lead Years. “Nizar” refers to Nizar Kabani, the
Syrian poet and statesman who fought for freedom throughout his
life (1923–98). Paralleling the reference to Nizar, Khalid, a doctor in
Casablanca, is engulfed in an investigation in the city that eventually
uncovers mass graves of political dissidents killed during the Lead
Years. Interestingly, tayf means “he who has completed the procession
ritual around the Kaaba,” . . . or, in the figurative sense, “he who has
turned” or “he who one has made turn like a dumb animal.”15 This
secondary meaning is significant, since the film’s entire dialogue was
shot in classical Arabic, which surprised Moroccan audiences as well
as those across the Arab world. Although not very well received in
Morocco, the language choice was perceived across the Arab world
as an attempt to make a universally Arabic language film that would
rival the box-office sales of Western movies.
La symphonie marocaine, screened in theaters four years later, was
very different in scope from Kamal Kamal’s first work and proved to
be a success among audiences at home (if not among critics) primarily
because of its theme: The film championed the plight of “les petites
gens” (the little people)—the poor and destitute—of contemporary
Moroccan society. The work also reflects the filmmaker’s own first
love, music. Born in 1961, Kamal Kamal studied the traditional musi-
cal forms of Morocco such as musique gharnati and the pedagogical
solfège technique, which relies on teaching pupils how to sight-sing.
Each note of a musical score is assigned a solfège syllable (or “sol-fa
syllable”). The filmmaker integrates his experience at the Conserva-
tory of Oujda throughout the film into characters who know only
instinctively how to play their instruments, and then learn to sight-
read in order to play the musical score of an orchestra. In 1986, Kamal
Kamal organized the Festival des arts populaires (Traditional Arts
Festival) in Saïdia and, two years later, the Festival of Rai Music in
Oujda. In 1993, he moved to Paris to study screenwriting, which he
completed in 1996. Since the late 1990s, he has worked in Morocco on
video clips for television and his own film screenplays.
Kamal Kamal’s international work, as well as his goal of blending
East with West musically and thematically, influenced the themes of
his second feature-length film. La symphonie marocaine appeals to in-
ternational audiences because it draws on universal human emotions
and themes such as: There is no honor in war; in poverty there is
beauty; and music is a human source of inspiration that can transcend
divisions between classes, ethnicities, and nations. Kamal Kamal’s
 58 / Issues, Contexts, and “Culture Wars”

plot is basic and, as he notes, is meant to show that “only those who
give with their heart remain in people’s memories.”16 The film unfolds
around the story of Hamid, who in 1982 deserts the Moroccan army
to go and fight in Lebanon against the Israeli invasion. Although a
military man, he is also an accomplished accordion player and com-
poser. Hamid, played by the famous Moroccan musician and actor
Younes Migri, comes home maimed (he lost an arm) and mentally
tormented from the war after having fought against the Israelis for
several years. Embittered, handicapped, and destitute, he reflects on
his past life and the futility of war. At one moment he states: “Arabs
and Israelis are all the same in death. . . . When their bodies were car-
bonized, lying there on the ground, I couldn’t tell the difference, no
nationality marked them.”
Hamid lives with his demons, “his monsters,” and with other has-
beens and destitute former musicians in train boxcars parked next to
a municipal dump in the port area of Casablanca. Following the death
of Balahcen, an old inhabitant of the dump who plays the traditional
Moroccan lute, Hamid and Kafi (also a composer and music teacher
who has fallen on hard times) rally their fellow musically gifted mis-
fits around a dream. The composers will form an orchestra to play in
a competition at Albert Hall in London. Both men believe that their
symphony will honor Balahcen’s memory while also winning the
competition for best musical score. The prize will be an invitation to
London to perform their music. The hard part is convincing Kafi’s
former students to come to the scrapyard to practice, since the real
Philharmonic Orchestra of Morocco is “too expensive.”
In Kafi and Hamid’s orchestral score there is one defining solo for
accordion, which Hamid wrote when he could play the instrument
with two hands. This is no longer possible until one day Kafi intro-
duces him to Ahlam, a young woman whose mother died of a heart
attack, leaving her an orphan. Kafi explains to Hamid that since she
has nowhere to go, he must look after her. We later learn that inad-
vertently Hamid caused Ahlam’s mother’s death when he rushed by
on his motor scooter and ripped her purse from her arm, knocking the
elderly woman down in the street. Because the purse contained her
heart medicine, she was unable to recover. Ahlam “sings like an angel”
and also can play the accordion. She will be the voice and the hands of
Hamid when the time comes to perform his solo piece for accordion
in the symphony.
 Marocains Résidants à l’Etranger (MRE) versus Filmmakers at Home / 59

The film, although weak on plot, encourages reflection on the

human condition of our times replete with wars, injustices, and abuses
of human rights: “Misery can push us to madness,” notes one of the
musicians as he comments on not only his life in the margins, but the
state of human societies that cannot rid themselves of violence. The
orchestra is made up of young men and women who are talented, yet
alienated by a society that makes no place for them. In a larger con-
text, Kamal Kamal’s principal themes are focused on entreating us to
invest in young talent, disavowing the need to make war and forgiv-
ing those who have committed heinous acts. Indeed, forgiveness and
inclusion are two themes that underlie the film.
Kafi entreats Rebeba, a young Moroccan French-speaking Jewish
woman (who is also a former student and magnificent cellist), to re-
nounce packing her bags to immigrate to Canada. He convinces her
to stay, to be a part of the orchestra, to forgive her country for its
racism against its Jewish population, and to honor her father, who
chose to stay in Morocco as a Jew. His plea, “You can still achieve your
dreams here,” echoes the general sentiment promoted since 1999 by
Mohammed VI that Morocco must make peace with its past and the
thousands of Jews who were more or less forced to leave in the 1960s.
Rebeba asks for Hamid’s pardon after having accused him of clan-
destinely joining the Lebanese army specifically to kill Jews in Leba-
non. Ahlam eventually pardons Hamid for the death of her mother in
the closing scenes, telling him: “If ever I meet the man who ran my
mother down, I will forgive him.”
Forgiveness is a virtue that the characters easily embrace. Improv-
ing their overall state of well-being, however, proves to be more com-
plicated. The filmmaker’s poignant criticism of the rampant poverty
and the waste of human talent that result from bureaucratic elitism
and corruption in Moroccan society are themes not lost on audiences.
“You get a diploma from the conservatory and you still find yourself
living in a scrapyard,” one of the musicians points out, thus indicating
the futility of striving to better one’s life in a country that is ruled by
an autocratic, powerful elite.
The characters, however, continue to struggle against misfortune,
planning to go forward with their musical goals. When they are not
accepted to compete in London for the British prize, they decide to
build their orchestra’s stage in the scrapyard in order to perform Kafi
and Hamid’s composition. The overwhelming socioeconomic hurdles
 60 / Issues, Contexts, and “Culture Wars”

of the characters, complicated by physical impairments (Hamid’s lost

arm, the orchestra saxophonist’s incapacity to speak and his slight
retardation) and lack of resources (water, electricity), make succeed-
ing elusive, but also represent the driving thematic force of the film.
When Ahlam falls, injuring herself and smashing Hamid’s accordion,
which she was holding, the symphony’s solo is almost lost. Hamid
must resort to stealing an instrument from a shop, only to have an
accident on his moped on the way back that gravely injures him. Al-
though he arrives with the accordion in time for the orchestra’s open-
ing and Ahlam promises to play his solo to honor his work, he knows
that he will die from his injuries. He asks to be moved closer to the
stage so that he can hear the solo when the time comes. However,
when Ahlam is supposed to play, the stolen accordion will not work.
She then resorts to standing and singing the music as Hamid slowly
dies, confronting a masked demon for the last time.
The melodrama of the film detracts somewhat from Kamal’s uni-
versal messages against war in the Arab world and, more particularly,
outcries against poverty and inequality at home. Critics found fault
also with the presence of the royal princess, who is invited to attend
the scrapyard performance. Although the filmmaker’s insertion of the
princess in the film symbolically pays homage to Mohammed VI’s
dedication to the poor (he is known as the King of the Poor), this
“graft onto the screenplay is noxious,” notes Karim Boukhari, writing
for TelQuel, a leading Francophone weekly newsmagazine. The prin-
cess, dressed in a traditional caftan, arrives in her limousine to fanfare
and pomp, which detracts from Kamal’s social criticism and gives in
to “sticking political correctness into the film, which, in the begin-
ning, was not at all the filmmaker’s intentions” (Boukhari 2006, n.p.).
Though the film falls short in making resonant social commen-
taries, it is unique in its appreciation of music, particularly certain
styles that are indigenous to Morocco. The film’s musical repertoire
includes pop music inspired by the tunes of well-known 1970s Mo-
roccan groups such as Jil Jilala and singer Lemchaheb, as well as the
traditional music of Dart bina doura and Khlili, recognizable to all
Moroccans. These pop and traditional groups are juxtaposed to “la
grande musique”—the classical compositions—played by the Con-
servatory of Music in Casablanca. “By rearranging these songs, I
wanted to first pay my respects to the wonderful groups that have
rocked many generations for thirty years and also to pay homage to
traditional Moroccan music,” explains Kamal Kamal.17 Music has the
 Marocains Résidants à l’Etranger (MRE) versus Filmmakers at Home / 61

Fig. 2.1. Nabyl Lahlou, Rabat, Morocco, 2007

ability to heal and to transgress social barriers of class and, as the

filmmaker points out, “musique peut sauver le monde” (music can save
the world).

Nabyl Lahlou’s Tabite or Not Tabite (2006):

Straight Up in Morocco
Nabyl Lahlou’s film about “l’affaire Tabite,” a well-known historical
event that still looms large in the national psyche of Morocco, pre-
miered in February 2007. Lahlou, known as the “Woody Allen” of
Moroccan cinema, has a history of pushing limits in his surrealist cin-
ematic representations of topical issues. A man of the stage first and
foremost, Lahlou pays particular attention to detail as far as lighting
and the diction of his actors are concerned. Although he has made
eight feature-length films, he was barred from the screen for ten years
in the 1990s because of several films in which he proposed controver-
sial subjects that often criticized the status quo of Moroccan politics
 62 / Issues, Contexts, and “Culture Wars”

and societal norms and customs. Lahlou has enjoyed a long career
that began in 1978 with the film Ali Kanfoudi, and continued through
the 1980s with Le gouverneur de l’île de Chakerbakerben (The governer
of Chakerbakerben Island, 1980), Brahim yach? (1982), La nuit du crime
(The night of the crime, 1982), L’homme qui brait (The man who brays,
1984), Komany (1990), Les années de l’exil (The years of exile, 2001),
and the most recent, Tabite or Not Tabite.
Nabyl Lahlou continues his exploration of the surreal within the
real in his eighth feature-length film, Tabite or Not Tabite. This lat-
est production is in keeping with the filmmaker’s avant-garde style
evident in previous films such as L’homme qui brait, Komany, and Les
années d’exil. Lahlou’s title, a play on words, depicts Tabite, a cor-
rupt police officer, for who he really is and was—a sexual predator. It
also draws on the ironic humor of three languages: Tabite in Arabic
means “straight up, inflexible and solid,” reflecting, of course, sex-
ual innuendo. In rather vulgar slang, ta bite in French means “your
dick” (penis), and, of course, “to be or not to be” implies the stage of
Shakespeare and classical Western theater. Indeed, many scenes are
shot in theatrical settings, thus revealing Lahlou’s talent as a man of
the theater. His blending of the surreal with the reality of Morocco’s
oppressive political history is a unique quality of the film.
Tabite or Not Tabite, formulated within the framework of the crime-
spy genre, explores the real-life story of police commissioner Tabite,
who in the 1980s filmed himself as he committed a series of rapes.
Tabite’s crimes also serve as a platform to scrutinize the many years
of dirty politics, torture, and abuse of human rights in Morocco dur-
ing the Lead Years. For years, Tabite was able to cover up his crimes
with bribes and power wielding because most of his victims were
poor and defenseless. The perpetrator, like so many other abusers
of power, was able to avoid punishment until the early 1990s—that
is, until two of his victims, who happened also to be the daughters
of rich and influential men, decided to press charges. Lahlou makes
no concessions in exposing the fact that when the elite are threat-
ened, action is taken. In 1992, the story was exposed in the press, and
Tabite was tried and hanged.
Tabite’s story reflects a time in Morocco during which police vio-
lence, torture, and abuse were inflicted upon the innocent or those
from the political opposition who questioned the system and pro-
moted transparency and free elections. Retaliation from the monarchy
 Marocains Résidants à l’Etranger (MRE) versus Filmmakers at Home / 63

and the powerful forced thousands into political exile. One of the lead
characters, Ali Brahma (played by Mourad Abderrahim), is an MRE
who lives in France but returns to his homeland in 1992 for his fa-
ther’s funeral. Despite the fact that he left when he was fifteen, “can’t
read Arabic and only speaks a smattering of the local dialect,” and
doesn’t observe the traditions of Ramadan (much to the chagrin of
his brother, who accuses him of not being a “true Muslim”), he is en-
raptured by the politics of his country and the possibility that things
might be changing. Ali becomes so intrigued by the Tabite story due
to the journal articles and media hype he discovers in the press while
in Morocco, he decides to write about it.
During the plane trip home to France, he meets Zakia Malik
(played by Sophia Hadi, who is Nabyl Lahlou’s wife), with whom he
decides to write first a theater production based on the Tabite affair,
and then a screenplay. It is at this point that the real and the surreal
merge as Lahlou’s film becomes a play within a film, connoting and
contextualizing Moroccan history within the present. Zakia Malik is
complex, becoming multiple persons and victims. She is first victim-
ized by Tabite, who puts out her eye on the stick shift of his car (a
phallic symbol alluding to his sexual crimes). As the representative
and avenger of many women, she haunts him in his dreams, finally
bringing him to justice. Zakia’s role melds into a second as the wife
of Zakaria Malik, a political dissident living in exile in Paris, who
eventually decides to return to Morocco and become prime minister.
Lahlou himself is “multiple,” playing the roles of Tabite and Zakaria
Malik throughout the film.
The film’s intricacy metaphorically reflects the reality of Moroccan
politics, particularly its warring factions and the nebulous power of
a system—the Makhzen—whose omnipotence is impossible to com-
bat.18 Those who profited from the system, as the film denotes, were
responsible for the torture and death of hundreds. The lucky few who
were able to escape into exile wonder if the country will ever change.
Indeed, much of the film’s plot is narrated in French by exiled dis-
sidents living in Paris. Like one of the lead characters, Amal Ayouch,
they, too, fled to escape death but now seek assurance, at the end of
the 1990s, that things have changed enough to go back. Encouraged
by the ascension to the throne of King Mohammed VI in 1999, the
change in power seems to bode well for a more favorable and just
political climate.
 64 / Issues, Contexts, and “Culture Wars”

Fig. 2.2. Sophia Hadi, actress and lead female role in Tabite, Casablanca,
Morocco, 2007

However, when Zakia and Ali return to Morocco to promote their

film, they are sadly dismayed by the fact that, although some things
have changed, others continue to remain the same, and new hurdles
abound. For example, “Les barbes qui poussent comme des champi-
gnons” (beards that spring up like mushrooms), as Ali remarks speak-
ing in French, reveal the filmmakers’ (Ali’s et Lahlou’s) concern for
the increasing evidence of Islamic “intégrisme” (fundamentalism) in
Morocco. The returnees’ hesitancy to feel completely comfortable in
their homeland is reflected at one point when Ali observes upon com-
pletion of his film, “Si on arrive à mettre en scène ce film ça veut dire
que le Maroc a vraiment changé” (If we succeed in showing this film,
it will mean that Morocco really has changed).
Tabite or Not Tabite captures a period of time, 1990–2005, that is
mired by its precariousness on both social and political levels. Lahl-
ou’s goal is to paint metaphorically the reality of Morocco, past and
present, through the horrors committed by Tabite, as he points out in
an interview published in Le journal hebdomadaire:
This event . . . is a platform for retracing many years of po-
litical life in Morocco, viewed by people who live in France
 Marocains Résidants à l’Etranger (MRE) versus Filmmakers at Home / 65

Fig. 2.3. Hassan Benjelloun, Casablanca, Morocco, 2009

and who want to come back. I evoked their impression that

nothing has changed, that Morocco is still a police system,
the testimonials of oppression, their hope. . . . I made this
film . . . in order to express sadness but also the hope that our
country can change. It is a positive film. (Sefrioui 2006, n.p.)
Although positive in some respects with regard to the changing
political tides in Morocco, Tabite or Not Tabite concludes by draw-
ing audiences’ attention to the repetition of human rights abuse on
a universal scale in our contemporary times. Although Morocco
might be remaking itself and improving its record, Iraq, Abu Ghraib
prison, and Afghanistan, for example, loom large as places of torture
and abjection. These are the new playgrounds for other perpetrators
of violence, notably, as Lahlou points out, George W. Bush, who is
condemned for war crimes at the end of the film. The filmmaker’s
message is clear: The torturers have changed faces and nationalities,
but they are still among us. The film denounces the torturers of not
only the past but also the present. In 2006, Lahlou’s references to the
war in Iraq and the American occupation there promoted a universal
plea for justice. In 2009, Tabite’s very Moroccan story still resonates
 66 / Issues, Contexts, and “Culture Wars”

internationally as we are reminded that the abuse of human rights and

the total disregard for human dignity are ever present in the twenty-
first century.

Hassan Benjelloun’s Où Vas-Tu Moshé? (2007):

My Brother the Jew
In a 2009 interview, Hassan Benjelloun emphasized that he has always
thought film should be used as a tool through which to influence au-
diences, candidly stating that “Moroccans do not have the luxury of
making luxurious films [purely for entertainment value].”19 In keep-
ing with this credo, Benjelloun has become one of the tour de force in
Moroccan cinema production since 2000, making films that encourage
audiences to think about a variety of subjects. Jugement d’une femme
(2000) tells the tale of a woman who is incarcerated for having killed
her husband in self-defense as he tried to strangle her when she asked
for a divorce. La chambre noire (2004) (analyzed in detail in chapter 4)
revisits the random imprisonment of political activists in the 1970s
during the most repressive period of the Lead Years. Benjalloun’s most
recent film, Où vas-tu Moshé? (2007), recaptures for the first time on-
screen a history that is seldom discussed, that is, the mass exodus of
Moroccan Jews to Israel and elsewhere in the early 1960s.
Although the film was critically praised, received some financial
backing from Canada, and was widely shown in Canadian film festi-
vals, the CCM, bowing to Moroccan authorities, mandated that Ben-
jelloun not give the film the title he preferred: “My Brother the Jew.”
The memory of the 1960s exodus and the complicity of the Moroccan
monarchy in facilitating the departure of thousands is still raw and
ill-defined in the post–Lead Years era.20 For Benjelloun the exodus is
also personal, since as a boy he experienced the loss of Jewish friends
from his town overnight. The filmmaker recalls that he went out in
the street one day and all the doors and windows were boarded up. “I
ran to my mother and asked, ‘Why are all the doors shut?’ She told
me, ‘They have all gone to Palestine.’ It was the first time I had ever
heard of Palestine.”21
At the time of Moroccan independence in 1956, the Jewish popu-
lation numbered almost 300,000. Mohammed V, known for having
protected Jews first during WWII against the Vichy government’s
Nazi laws, and later during the throes of independence from the ultra-
Islamic nationalists, was revered by the Jewish community. Yet, where
 Marocains Résidants à l’Etranger (MRE) versus Filmmakers at Home / 67

Mohammed V was considered a hero among them, his son, Hassan II,
was their traitor. Seeking to build a strong Islamic state with deep ties
to the Arab world, Hassan II encouraged the Zionists’ call to popu-
late the newly created Israel by fomenting rumors that Jews were
no longer welcome in Morocco. By the late 1960s, particularly after
the Six-Day War of 1967, thousands of Moroccan Jews had left the
country for the United States, Canada, and France. In the twenty-first
century, Mohammed VI’s policy of openly inviting Jews back to Mo-
rocco, in an effort to revisit and rectify this open wound of the past,
has had little success. Museums honoring Moroccan Jews have been
opened in Agadir and Casablanca, but it remains to be seen if Jews will
come home.
Although the largest Jewish populations were concentrated in Fez,
Meknes, and Marrakech, Benjelloun chooses to set his film in Bej-
jad, a small village in the Atlas Mountains. Moshé is the barber who
eventually leaves but who becomes a symbol for the brain drain and
know-how that left with the Jewish population of Morocco, as cap-
tured in one scene between several village men drinking together in
the local bar:
First man to his friends: I don’t understand why you’re glad
the Jews are leaving . . . Don’t forget that among them is
the doctor, the engineer, the accountant . . . 
Second: All the better. More work for Moroccans.
Third: Sorry, but they’re also Moroccans.
Although Moshé, the barber of the village, becomes a symbol for
a persecuted community, the story focuses on Shlomo Bensoussan
(Simon Elbaz), who is the local clock repairman and a musician who
plays the traditional oud in a musical group made up of Jews and Mus-
lims. Their most popular venue is Mustapha’s bar, which every night
hosts villagers of all faiths who drink and play chess together. The
bar is the focal point where debates about religion, nationalism, and
the changing political tides of the country are discussed. Through the
information passed between clients in the bar, Benjelloun crafts a film
that often is didactic and docurealist in scope as he seeks to inform
audiences about what happened in the past. His goal is not to take
sides, but to blame the forces of power that manipulated and coerced
average Moroccans into making choices they did not want to make.
Shlomo’s religion is secondary to the affinity he feels for his iden-
tity as a Moroccan who loves his country and his village, and whose
 68 / Issues, Contexts, and “Culture Wars”

ancestors, he notes, are all buried in the village cemetery: “Can an

old man like me leave his country? My life is here in Bejjad. All my
friends, Jews, Muslims, Christians . . . I have everything I need.”
Although all the Jews of the village, including his wife and daugh-
ter, board the bus to take them to Casablanca and then to a boat for
Israel, Shlomo refuses to go. He ends up being the last Jew in the
village of Bejjad and a person of importance to Mustapha (played by
the well-known Moroccan actor Abdelkader Lofti), the bar’s owner,
who can keep his business open only if “non-Muslims frequent the
establishment.” Much to the chagrin of the local Imam and Islamic
officials who are hoping to rid the village of alcohol and foreign vices,
the bar can remain open according to “Article 138, paragraph B of
the Penal Code,” as long as “there are non-Muslims in the bar drink-
ing.” Mustapha buys the bar from its French owner, “one of the last
Frenchmen in independent Morocco,” who is dying after having lived
for years in the village.
As more and more Jews leave, Mustapha realizes that he must do
all he can to keep Shlomo coming to the bar. Recalling 1961 and the
deaths of hundreds of Jews on the boat Ergos, which sank off the coast
of Morocco as they were trying to make their way to Europe, Mus-
tapha urges Shlomo to rethink his decision to leave with his family:
“Lots of Jews died. . . . They crammed them in so tightly, the boat
sank. . . . Don’t follow those Zionists. . . . And in Palestine, the bar-
men are all Polish. . . . Do you speak Polish? How will you order beer
without foam? . . . What the hell would you do there? Think it over.”
Shlomo becomes a pawn, passed back and forth between the Zionists
and Mustapha like a chess piece on the boards of the games played in
the bar.
Mustapha’s fear of losing the bar if Shlomo leaves is so great it
forces him to drastic measures. He intercepts the Jew’s letters from
his daughter, Rachel (who finally arrives in Israel), and forces his son,
Hassan, to translate her French into an Arabic that Shlomo can under-
stand. Hassan, obeying his father but against his own will, leaves out
many of the details of Rachel’s unhappy experiences as an émigré in
Israel. Benjelloun’s point about language in Morocco as an important
unifier in the country is a resounding theme in the film. Shlomo can
speak and understand only Moroccan Arabic. Like his fellow Muslim
villagers, he does not understand French and certainly has never had
the need to learn Hebrew. His daughter writes in French because Mo-
roccan Arabic is a dialect and, therefore, not a written language.
 Marocains Résidants à l’Etranger (MRE) versus Filmmakers at Home / 69

The Marocainité—Moroccanness—that unites Moroccans is a con-

cept that has been a focal point in Mohammed VI’s post–Lead Years’
agenda for healing and combating “outside forces” that seek to make
Morocco into a radical Islamic state. This leitmotif in the film is es-
sential in bridging Benjelloun’s narrative of the 1960s with issues to
which contemporary audiences can relate. Rachel’s tale of the prom-
ised land is ironically full of broken promises made by the Zionists
and Israel. Upon her and her mother’s arrival, there are no jobs, and
racism against Sephardic Jews from North Africa is rampant. Rachel
explains that “the Jews here are not like us. . . . They don’t eat kosher.
The peaceful life of Morocco seems far away. We often speak about
it together. They put us in a camp to learn Hebrew. For jobs, they
prefer Jews from Europe. North Africans stay unemployed.” Rachel
and her mother attend demonstrations fomented by Moroccan Jews
who “want to go back to Morocco” as they wave Moroccan flags while
chanting, “Morocco is our home.”
Finally, out of guilt Hassan reveals to Shlomo that his father forced
him to lie to him to keep him in the bar so it wouldn’t have to close.
The young man also divulges to the Jew that actually Rachel has left
Israel and is married and living in Paris. Shlomo promptly decides to
leave, asking, “Why did you lie to me? What did I do to you?” This
poignant question echoes large in the context of Morocco’s history.
In the end, Shlomo does leave but not clandestinely at night, like so
many other Jews. He tells his friends in the bar that he will “leave in
the daylight, not like a thief in the middle of the night.” His story’s
ending will be clear and well understood, as a good-bye that is heard
by all, noted down, and retold.
When he finally reaches Casablanca to take the plane (not the boat)
to Paris to join his daughter, he happens upon Berbkha, a mentally re-
tarded older Jew of the village who, because of his mental illness, has
been rejected by the Israeli authorities as unworthy of immigration
to Israel. Left on the streets of Casablanca, he is destitute and hungry.
Shlomo sends him back to the village and, in the final scenes in Mus-
tapha’s bar, which is now reopened, he is revered and celebrated as the
last non-Muslim not to have left his village and his homeland.
Discussing his film, Hassan Benjelloun revealed in an interview
that, although other Moroccan filmmakers still practice a certain
amount of self-censure, avoiding the sensitive subjects of religion, the
monarchy, and sex, his films have succeeded and received accolades
for their sociopolitical themes. One of the reasons he has been able to
 70 / Issues, Contexts, and “Culture Wars”

address even these issues is because he makes his audiences respon-

sible for thinking about them. Perhaps more subtle than his MRE
counterparts such as Leïla Marrakchi, Benjelloun believes that even
if sensitive, these subjects have to be addressed. Social engagement is
not only a right, it is a privilege in a democratic society. For Benjel-
loun, it is the filmmaker who must build bridges between audiences
and their history.22
Relying on the climate of the post-1999 era, during which Moroc-
can unity has been a key component of Mohammed VI’s mandate,
Benjelloun admits that his film is a sign of the times and the opening
up of the closed doors of Morocco’s past. The history that he portrays
on the screen, whether in this most recent film or as in La chambre
noire, is one that seeks to reveal all sides of the past: “Le sociale . . . les
soucis de la société marocaine, la mémoire, les problèmes de la société,
les tabous au Maroc, sont mes sujets de préférence” (The social . . . the
worries of Moroccan society, memory, social problems, taboos in
Morocco, these are my preferred subjects).23
In Où vas-tu Moshé? at no time is Israel idolized as a place that is
a haven for Jews. Nor is Morocco made into a country where Jews
feel they can live in peace and security, as depicted in the exchange
between two of Shlomo’s friends who try to convince him to leave
the village and go to Marseille, France. Benjelloun’s camera angle is
interesting as it focuses on the two friends’ faces while they directly
look at the audience/Shlomo, entreating it/him to reflect on not only
the Jews’, but Morocco’s turbulent past: “Israel is a trap, come live
with us in Marseille. . . . Nothing is stable here with Ben Barka and
Allal Al-Fassi’s leftists. Life here is unsure. You know what we have
lived through; our lives have never been easy. We’ve had to keep low
profiles and hide. It’s impossible to reason with him.”
Benjelloun’s raison d’être is to implore that reason champion over
rash decisions and power plays between elitist authorities and reli-
gious officials who have free license to manipulate the little people
caught between them. The futility of nationalist or religious doc-
trines and their inability to found any lasting positive changes for the
Moroccan people are themes that resonate in a country that is still
questioning its past in order to refashion a present that embraces its
multicultural diversity, which has always been and will continue to
be there.
 3

Bad Boys, Drugs, and Rock ’n’ Roll

The Urban Stories of Morocco

The modern city has been a favorite backdrop to some of the most
compelling cinematic works of the twentieth and twenty-first centu-
ries. In the West, the excesses and limits of cities have provided fod-
der for filmmakers’ scenarios since the first Lumière brothers’ films of
the late nineteenth century (Shiel 2001,1). On-screen, the city in the
twentieth and twenty-first centuries has represented “the ominous
glamour of postmodernity, individualism, consumption, and elec-
tronic reproduction” (1). Western filmmakers have repeatedly cast the
city as a dystopia, hostile and violent, afflicting man with the worst
brutality. Certainly, futurist films such as Blade Runner (1982), Mad
Max (1985), and Demolition Man (1993) have most effectively evoked
the city as a dystopia for audiences in recent years. The cityscapes in
these films are paradigms used to conceptualize a form of chaos that
awaits humankind (at least in the West), which has failed to rectify the
ills and corruption, greed and evil, within it. On a philosophical level,
the dystopia is the result of society’s refusal to heed “changing social
norms and environmental conditions” that eventually negatively im-
pact its human development (Edmonds 2003, 22).
Cinema has become the perfect medium through which to study
the city as a source of inspiration and despair for the society found
within its limits. Mark Shiel and Tony Fitzmaurice note in Cinema
and the City: Film and Urban Societies in Context that the “nexus cinema-
city,”1 which inspires filmmakers to depict on the screen the city as
 72 / Bad Boys, Drugs, and Rock ’n’ Roll

either dystopia or the shining summit of man’s architectural prow-

ess, provides “a rich avenue for investigation and discussion of key
issues which ought to be of common interest in the study of society
and . . . culture” (2001, 2). Depicting the modern city on-screen allows
“the relationship between culture and society [to be fully explored],
particularly in what is now commonly referred to as the current global
postmodern social and cultural context” (2). The city is a window
onto power relationships and societal transformations and how these
express “ ‘modernity,’ ‘industrialism’ and, in the case of the twenty-
first century, globalized ‘postmodernity’ ” (2).
The Moroccan films analyzed in this chapter use their cityscapes to
interrogate the “geo-ecopolitical” debates that have arisen in formerly
colonized countries (Bose 2008, 38). Globalization and localized, fast-
paced urbanization of the cities of developing countries such as Morocco
have forced urban dwellers to “confront [their] own modernities [as]
analogous with transgressive [behavior]” that is unique to the times of
our age and the cityspace in which it transpires (38). The modern urban-
scape of Casablanca, in particular, offers filmmakers a sociocultural mi-
crocosm, or a place of convergence—a time-space chronotope—in which
to develop their theories about and on the sociocultural and political
transitions taking place currently in the country. Mikhail Bakhtin’s “lit-
erary artistic chronotope” can be used as a cinematographic model, of-
fering the perfect medium through which to fuse “spatial and temporal
indicators” in present Moroccan life as well as past, historical memory.
These indicators “are fused into one carefully thought-out, concrete
whole. Time, as it were, thickens, takes on flesh, becomes artistically vis-
ible; likewise, space becomes charged and responsive to the movements
of time, plot and history” (Bakhtin 1981, 84).
The films Casanegra (2008), L’os de fer (The iron bone, 2007), Les
anges de Satan (Satan’s angels, 2007), and Casablanca (2002) reveal
that in the era of intense globalization, urban spaces in Morocco
have become progressively more “fragmented, imploding, imagina-
tive, subjective, unknowable and fantastic . . . linked with power and
difference” (Watson and Gibson 1995, 293).2 The modern city is for
these filmmakers a corrupted human space that rejects the laws of tra-
ditional life, dislocates the individual from his or her clan, and leads
to the dissolution of the social contract between man and his com-
munity. In the films analyzed in this chapter, the urban space is one
that fosters reflection on the price of modernity, technology, and the
hypothetical Western advances of the globalized age.
 The Urban Stories of Morocco / 73

Many Moroccan films made since 1999 draw on the ills of urban
milieus to study the unraveling of the sociopolitical fabric of the coun-
try. City images in films such as Casablanca (Benlyazid, 2002), Les
anges de Satan (Boulane, 2007), L’os de fer (Lasri, 2007), and Casanegra
(Lakhmari, 2008) posit urban spaces as “public emblems of fear and
desire” (Haynes 2007, 133). The hostile streets and urban tensions
encourage audiences to think about how the contemporary Moroccan
city influences the individual and what she or he believes “constitutes
life and what it means to be human” (Edmonds 2003, 22).
Casablanca, as an overwhelming urban space of gigantesque pro-
portions depicted in almost all these films (except Lasri’s, which takes
place in Agadir), allows the filmmaker to posit social-realist images
that expose the underbelly of Moroccan daily life, replete with pov-
erty, unemployment, exploitation, and the hopeless dreams of Moroc-
can youth. On many levels, Casablanca is typical of most contempo-
rary African cities, which are rife with contradictions that arise when
modernity clashes with traditionalism, and the colonial past is melded
to the globalized present. Throughout Africa, these clashes have
been exacerbated by population shifts since independence that have
brought thousands of rural people into overcrowded, urban slums
located on the outskirts of large cities such as Casablanca, Nairobi,
Dakar, and Lagos, to name just a few. Therefore, filmmakers find that
inherent “social conditions of crime, violence, and overcrowding,” as
found in the modern African city, “provide useful material” for didac-
tic, thought-provoking films (Oha 2001, 197).
The modern, contemporary tensions that arise from demographic
dislocation influence sociocultural values and politics in Morocco,
as elsewhere across Africa and the developing world. Social activist
Noureddine Affaya and Driss Guerraoui affirm that “the Moroccan
city is a true theater of social upheavals that affect Moroccan soci-
ety” (2006, 41). Slums have sprung up around major cities because of
the exodus of country people from rural areas. These slums are now
working-class ghettos that have trapped their inhabitants in vicious
circles of poverty (41). The erosion of traditional values as huge num-
bers of rural residents migrate to the cities seeking employment has
encouraged filmmakers to look closely at how film can contextualize
for audiences the urban spaces that often surround and close them
inside a world that is unfamiliar and foreboding.
The films studied here depict Moroccans’ concerns with how
urban environments influence the human condition, family structures,
 74 / Bad Boys, Drugs, and Rock ’n’ Roll

and an individual’s identity. Like their counterparts elsewhere on the

continent, Moroccan filmmakers more often than not depict “urban
environments [as] sites of frustration and disillusionment.” Their
films also scrutinize urban ills in an African context that expose the
fact that “African cities invariably articulate relations of power” (Pfaff
2004, 104). Power is disclosed in many forms as associated with the
neocolonialism of Western capitalist interests or the controlling, ma-
nipulative, and exploitive status quo maintained by the elite class. For
Moroccan filmmakers, power struggles between rich and poor and
haves and have-nots translate into reflexive paradigms that repeat
themselves, remaining unchanged with time, since they are viewed
as unalterable. Ironically, at the same time, Casablanca is looked upon
with admiration because it represents a megatropolis at the cross-
roads of the past and the present, the traditional and the modern, the
West and the East. With a population of four million, it is the largest
city in the Maghreb and has become “a melting pot for the Moroc-
can nation. It is where the Morocco of tomorrow is being made, and
where old territorial, tribal, cultural, and ethnic affiliations dissolve”
(Vermeren 2007, 59).
Moroccan films depicting dystopic cityscapes are overwhelmingly
masculine. The power, corruption, and violence of the streets are the
sole purviews of men. Women are caught in the webs the city of Casa-
blanca weaves for them. In Noureddine Lakhmari’s Casanegra, Adil’s
mother is repeatedly severely beaten by her husband; and in Farida
Benlyazid’s Casablanca, poor women are victimized or sequestered
by men who bind them by violence and economic dependency. Al-
though certain stereotypes are challenged, such as the stigma placed
on women living alone raising a child (Ghali in Casanegra) or work-
ing outside the home, contributing as an equal partner to the family’s
well-being (Amine’s wife in Casablanca and the women of the modern,
middle-class families in Les anges de Satan), for the most part these
women’s roles are unremarkable, still overshadowed by tradition and
stereotypes associated with being Moroccan and female.
Casablanca is cast overwhelmingly as phallic. Its tall skyscrap-
ers—particularly the Twin Towers (La Grande Casa), two twenty-
eight-story concrete office buildings completed in 1998, in the heart
of the city—sit squarely erect, continually reminding dwellers of the
omnipotent masculine prowess associated with modernity. At the
opposite end of the city, another quintessential masculine edifice is
the Hassan II Mosque, which lies between the old medina and the
 The Urban Stories of Morocco / 75

Fig. 3.1. La Grande Casa (also known as the “Twin Towers”), Casablanca

Atlantic Ocean. Built by King Hassan II between 1986 and 1993 as

a tribute to himself at colossal financial expense (and to the detri-
ment of his people who were bled dry by incessant taxes to pay for
it), the mosque is the largest in the Arab world and remains today a
testament to the power of the past and the continuing dominance of
patriarchy rooted in Islam, the monarchy, and the traditional religious
structures that will forever dictate the parameters of Moroccan cul-
ture. La Grande Mosquée, as it is known throughout the Arab world,
was built to evoke the omnipotence of God and king.
Although Hassan II’s reign represents an epoch most Moroccans
strive to forget, they are constantly reminded of his legacy, which is
captured in the mosque’s minaret (the tallest in the world) and its
 76 / Bad Boys, Drugs, and Rock ’n’ Roll

Fig. 3.2. La Grande Mosquée, Casablanca

huge, foreboding doors cast in bronze, copper, mosaic, and marble.

Repeatedly visible as imposing landmarks in the backdrops of numer-
ous Moroccan films—Ali Zaoua (1999), Marock (2005), Casablanca
(2002), and Casanegra (2008), to name just a few—the Twin Towers
and La Grande Mosquée are the two monumental symbols that most
effectively represent contemporary Morocco as a country caught be-
tween two opposing poles: one representing the modernist, capitalist,
secular future; the other the religious, archaic, obscure past.

Noureddine Lakhmari’s Casanegra (2008):

Mean Streets

Casanegra, by Moroccan Noureddine Lakhmari, opened in early 2008

and drew wide audience attendance. Technically one of the most
refined films to be released in the 2000s, Noureddine Lakhmari’s
style appeals to the urban and globalized youth of today’s Morocco.
Lakhmari, in his forties, recently returned to Morocco after spending
 The Urban Stories of Morocco / 77

many years in the Netherlands and Norway, where he studied film and
made several shorts: Trapped by Night (1999), The Last Show (1998),
Paper Boy (1997), Born without Skis (1996), Short Notes (1995), and The
Silent Struggle (1993). The characters depicted in these films are mi-
grants, street people, and low-income workers; the lonely and forgot-
ten in the unseen neighborhoods of European cities. In 2005 Le re-
gard (The gaze), Lakhmari’s first feature-length film, shot in Morocco,
won accolades at several international film festivals. Thematically, The
Gaze breaks with the filmmaker’s earlier films to delve into the past
of a Frenchman, Albert Tueis. In an earlier era, Tueis worked as an
army photographer during the Moroccan rebellion for independence.
Although taking many pictures during the time, he never published
them. Years later, he returns to Morocco to find the negatives he bur-
ied there and is confronted with the painful memories of his past.
Much like the lead character in The Gaze, Noureddine Lakhmari’s
return to his country after years abroad affords him an unusual per-
spective as both insider and outsider of a society in transition. His
fame at home was particularly established when he was asked by 2M,
the principal state-run TV network of Morocco, to do nine episodes
of a crime series called El Kadia. Influenced by American graphic
crime-scene TV series such as CSI, Hill Street Blues, Bones, Cold
Case, and Without a Trace, Lakhmari brought filming techniques and
themes to Moroccan TV that had never been seen before. El Kadia
features Zineb Hajjami, a female forensic police officer who, much like
her American female counterparts, profiles murderers through the
latest technical innovations and scientific inquiry in order to solve
heinous crimes. Beautiful, feminine, analytical, and intellectual, Haj-
jami represents a new generation of police enforcement professionals
who aspire to found a more just and transparent system of law and
order in Morocco.
Although the plots are simplistic, Lakhmari touches upon a host
of social messages, including that women can be police officers, dif-
ferences between classes can be overcome, the sociocultural divide
between urban and rural regions does not mean justice cannot be
served, and, most important, that Morocco can aspire to cultivate a
police culture that is dedicated to protecting human rights. Most spe-
cifically, the series expresses to audiences that times are changing and
Morocco can be wiped clean of corruption.
All the episodes of El Kadia were shot with a handheld camera that
follows the characters’ every move. Glitzy scenes of Zineb in her lab
Fig. 3.3. Poster for the El Kadia crime series by Noureddine Lakhmari
 The Urban Stories of Morocco / 79

scrutinizing gory cadavers after she cuts them open in order to find
motives for murders dominate the fast-paced plots. Lakhmari’s suc-
cessful series, ironically shown during the month of Ramadan suppos-
edly designated for religious reflection, demonstrated that Moroccan
television was now globalized. Series revolving around violent crime
were no longer the purview of Western imports; they could now be
made easily at home. In a country whose murder rate is exceedingly
low, pop-culture pundits commenting in newspapers and magazines
now worry if fiction will influence reality.
Casanegra, which opened in 2008, brought Moroccan filmmaking
into the techno-globalized age. Again, the influences of American
pop-culture TV series and violence are integrated into Lakhmari’s
unique view of Casablanca. Shot primarily at night with untrained ac-
tors in some of the seediest neighborhoods of the city, the film opens
with two young men running from the police. Through a flashback,
the audience learns that the men are in their midtwenties and are
searching to find their way in a society that offers them few oppor-
tunities. Although they survive by committing petty crimes, their
jovial personalities and street banter endear them to viewers. Adil
and Karim, played by Omar Lotfi and Anas Elbaz, two untrained ac-
tors, live by their street smarts, running small-time credit card fraud
schemes (Adil) and by employing street kids to sell contraband ciga-
rettes (Karim). Adil’s one aspiration is to find $6,000 so that he can
leave Morocco and join his uncle in Malmo, Sweden; while Karim,
who is perpetually dressed in a black suit with tie and white shirt,
dreams of climbing the social ladder to get a girl, acquire fortune, and
live an easy life.
By way of these principal characters, Lakhmari touches upon a host
of social issues that have plagued Morocco’s youth for the last twenty
years: increasing demographic numbers and high rates of unemploy-
ment among the young (23 percent of Morocco’s population is under
the age of fifteen). In an interview, Lakhmari claims that by using un-
known and untrained actors, he was better able to “unleash the strength
and violence that I expected from the characters.”3 It is Moroccan
youth who are the most affected by disparities of class, the poverty of
the streets, domestic violence, and drugs. Casablanca is, in fact, “Casa-
negra,” according to Adil, who, comparing it to the pristine postcard
of Malmo, Sweden, that he constantly carries in his pocket, remarks
that the city is bleak and dark—a place to run from. In a soliloquy, Adil
explains to Karim that escaping the crass city streets means
 80 / Bad Boys, Drugs, and Rock ’n’ Roll

no more traffic noise, no more aristocrats who run red lights

because they drive fancy cars, no more drunks in the neigh-
borhoods, no more beggars on the sidewalks who use kids
who aren’t their own to beg, no more Islamic fundamental-
ists who want to force us into Paradise, no more perverted
Saudis and Kuwaitis who dirty this country, no more of my
stepfather’s mug which I have to see each morning, no more
Casanegra. I want Malmo, a little house with a chimney and
from where I can watch the snow fall.
Pirated copies of Casanegra, readily found in the medinas of Mo-
rocco’s large cities, boldly sport DVD covers of African American
author Blair Underwood’s novel of the same title that was published
in 2007. One wonders if Lakhmari read Underwood’s novel, since
several of his scenes resemble the hard-boiled plot hammered out by
Tennyson Hardwick, leading protagonist. Guns, violence, rap music,
and the hood feeling of the film are visual realities of urban culture, a
culture embraced by street gangs not only in L.A. but in Casablanca.
Lakhmari’s style is definitely influenced by the American films of
Tarantino, the Cohen brothers, Scorsese, and Lynch. Thematically,
the East-West divide in Casanegra is nonexistent, thus rendering plot
lines predictable and cliché, even though the dialogue is delivered in
Moroccan dialectical Arabic.
When Adil and Karim see that their delinquent ways of making
money are not producing the sums they had hoped for, they turn to
petty criminal Zrirek (Mohammed Benbrahim), who stalks the dark
Casablancan streets in his Mercedes with his little terrier, Nico, in tow.
As a small-time thug, Zrirek extorts money from his “clients,” who are
restaurant and convenience store owners, by threatening them with a
handheld drill. When he’s not prowling the streets, Zrirek hangs out
in his favorite nightclub with his girlfriend (played by famous Moroc-
can star Raluca), who tends the bar. Zrirek provides comic relief when
needed, while also playing the role of tutor and mentor to the young
men as they seek to fulfill their aspirations through a life of crime.
At one moment, he is almost likable in a paternal manner as he com-
ments on the fact that even though there are “more and more beggars
in the streets these days,” Adil should think twice about leaving his
country for Malmo to become just another “immigré clandestin”:
Don’t tell me you’re going to go play the illegal game . . . like
all that other human waste that the sea coughs up every
 The Urban Stories of Morocco / 81

day. . . . Forget Europe; there’s nothing better than your coun-

try. Over there you’ll only be one more immigrant. . . . Here,
even if it’s superficial, at least they say hi to you in the streets.

In order to determine if they are up to the challenge of larger jobs,

Zrirek decides to test Adil’s and Karim’s resolve to embark on a life of
crime. He sends them to collect money from a cross-dresser who owes
the thug. Lakhmari’s commentary on class and particular character-
istics linked with class privilege are meted out as the plot transpires.
Interestingly, the rich transvestite speaks only French (Lakhmari bla-
tantly sends audiences the message that sexual deviance is still the
realm of people who are Westernized and French-speaking), accusing
the young men, as he parades around in his silk bathrobe with a hand-
held camera, of being “fuckers who don’t have anything better to do.”
After beating and leaving the cross-dressing aristocrat bloodied on
the floor, Adil and Karim do a walk-through of the house, looking for
the money they are supposed to collect. “I don’t know where they find
all this dough,” Adil remarks. Scanning the palatial mansion Karim
quips, “Here is Casa-Blanca.”
As they peruse the villa, Karim finds a new Armani suit in a closet,
while Adil, looking for the money owed Zrirek, finds huge packets of
cash stowed away under a bathroom sink. The young men note that
power and goods are the privilege of the rich who are French-speak-
ing and fill their houses with Western comforts and inventions. Adil
hides the fat packets of bills in his pants from Karim, convinced that the
money will buy his mother her freedom from his abusive stepfather and
his ticket to Malmo. When the boys report back to Zrirek, the young
men’s mentor then reveals a new, more challenging job for them: rig a
horse race by doping the favored horse. Karim gets cold feet, convinced
that he can go straight and win over his girl, Nabila (Ghita Tazi), a sin-
gle mother who works as an antique dealer for rich, French-speaking
clients. She is convinced that Karim is a respectable, well-to-do gentle-
man with whom she can found a relationship. Indeed, sexual mores are
pushed to the limit as Lakhmari films a steamy love scene between the
two, which was accepted by audiences (and the authorities’ censure)
without hesitation.
Women objectified by men, as objects of love or violence, are a
recurrent theme in the filmmaker’s scenario. Karim and Nabila’s love-
making is contrasted by the domestic violence ruling Adil’s household.
In one scene, Adil’s mother is so severely beaten by his stepfather that
 82 / Bad Boys, Drugs, and Rock ’n’ Roll

the young man decides to use some of the stolen money to save her life.
He puts her on a bus and sends her back to her dead first husband’s
family. “How will they be able to accept me again?” she asks, noting
that she has no other options but to be dependent on her in-laws.
Aspiring to live up to his lover’s expectations, Karim is convinced
by his mother to call his father’s former employer to get a “respectable”
job. His father is now a handicapped man with cerebral palsy, presum-
ably afflicted from having stood for years in the cold fish cannery
where he scaled fish for 50 dirhams a day (less than US$5). Karim is
hired, but lasts only one shift, after enduring the backbreaking labor
and exploitation of El Hajji, whom he berates as an exploiter of the
underclass. Again, poverty and lack of education keep Karim from
earning the place he deems is rightfully his. “How did you stand it for
thirty years?” he asks his silenced father. “The odor, the exploitation,
standing on your feet eight hours a day? All that . . . why? Just to end
like this?”
Pushed by his desire to change his fate, Karim finally agrees to
help Adil dope the horse for the payoff from Zrirek. Of course, things
go wrong. The horse escapes with the young men running quickly
behind. The incongruous image of the wild, beautiful black racehorse
running in the streets of Casablanca is ephemerally surreal. The ani-
mal’s desire for freedom from the closed-in miles of concrete, glass,
and decaying infrastructure mirror Adil’s and Karim’s desires for an-
other life that will never be attained. In their car, they continue to
search for the horse but end up crashing into Zrirek, totaling his car,
killing his small dog, and badly hurting the thug. The money, lots of
dirhams destined for the payoff, stays in Zrirek’s trunk, since they
must run to escape the police arriving on the scene. Escaping into the
night, returning to where their journey began, presumably to face a
fate that is unchanged, cinches the flashback. The audience finds itself
back where it started, in the beginning, where nothing has changed
to alter the fate of two young men caught in the abjection of contem-
porary modernity.

Hicham Lasri’s L’Os de Fer (2007):

The Outcries of Morocco’s Disaffected Youth

“Even if you study, you’ll be an unemployed broke ass just like us,” says
one “Haïtiste” (literally a “wall prop”) to another as he stands against a
Fig. 3.4. Poster for Hicham Lasri’s L’os de fer
 84 / Bad Boys, Drugs, and Rock ’n’ Roll

graffitied wall in a disaffected “derb” (neighborhood) of the coastal town

of Agadir. A scene from Hicham Lasri’s feature film L’os de fer (The iron
bone) is echoed in the opening note in his play (K)rêve! (2006):
“Haïtiste” est un dérivé du mot arabe “Haït” qui signifie mur.
Dans le jargon de la rue, un Haïtiste est une sorte de grade
dans l’échelle de la régression humaine . . . un jeune homme
qui ne fait rien de sa journée et qui passe son temps adossé
à un mur. . . . Homme battu sur le terrain de la survie et qui
échoue dans la décharge mondiale des laissés pour compte
(2006, 11).

(Haïtiste is derived from the Arabic word Haït, which means

“wall.” In street slang, a Haïtiste is a sort of rung in the ladder
of human regression . . . a young man who doesn’t do any-
thing during the day and who spends his time leaning up
against a wall. . . . A man conquered in the field of survival
and who fails in the worldwide dump of those left to fend for
themselves.)
Many of the themes thirty-three-year-old filmmaker Hicham Lasri
explores in his written work recur in the screenplays for his films.
Lasri’s play’s title, (K)rêve!, is multilayered, alluding to the principal
character, K, or “(K)amal le haïtiste,” who is a young man, inert, pass-
ing his time by leaning up against a wall. He is without resources or
ambition, and watches the actions of others as he “dreams” (rêver) of
a better life. “(K)rêve” also reads in French as “crêve,” conjugated in
the command form from the verb crêver, a slangish term that means
“to die.” K can dream or he can die and, as for many, these are the only
two choices facing multitudes of Moroccan youth today.
K is reminiscent of the character K in Franz Kafka’s famous novel
The Castle. Instead of the ominous corridors faced by Kafka’s protag-
onist, Lasri’s K is caught in a labyrinth of possible dreams that he
is kept from dreaming because he is trapped in a “no-man’s-land of
aborted dreams” (2006, 22). Mohammed Bigbrother is K’s jailer, “the
executioner for the World-Without, which is condemned to failure.”
As executioner, Bigbrother “cuts off the heads of people who give bad
answers to his questions on the usefulness of sleep” (9). K is a prisoner
with his Conscience, his “alter ego, which stutters and suffers from his
handicap, feeling guilty because he cannot function properly to help
 The Urban Stories of Morocco / 85

K” (9). Microbsoft is the visitor spirited down to the cell by what he

claims is K’s call for help. “My presence here is justified by the need
for something: it’s the common language of a Problem. . . . My mis-
sion is to repair the breach, to put an end to the perturbation that is
causing the problem” (38). But K is incapable of defining his prob-
lem. What is it, really, other than to have had the misfortune of being
born into no prospects and no future? “The only illusion that I have
loved . . . is dead . . . and I’m the one who killed it,” K states at the end
of the play (138).
Hicham Lasri is one of the most politically committed young
social-activist filmmakers currently working in Morocco. His novel
Stati: Roman à facettes (2009) and his plays Larmes de joie un jour de
Zamzam et crissement de dents de cafard dans un champ de bataille passé à
l’eau de javel ou La légende du 11ème doigt de Ash (2007)4 and (K)rêve!
(2006) all reveal a dedication to bringing the plight of the disaffected
young and poor of Morocco to the forefront. Like his writing, his
films also dwell on the hopelessness of today’s Moroccan youth, who
are plagued by high rates of unemployment (about 62 percent), lack of
work skills, and dismal futures with no financial security. Lasri stud-
ied film in France and Morocco and, in 2002, won first prize in the
Maghreb-wide competition “Unnoticed Artists of the Maghreb.” His
short films, Jardin des rides (Garden of wrinkles, 2006) and Ali J’nah
Freestyle (2004), as well as his three feature-length films, Le peuple de
l’horloge (People of the clock, 2009), Tiphinar (2008), and L’os de fer
(2007), explore the themes most pertinent to the youth of Morocco:
how to be an individual in a society dominated by overbearing cultural
mores and traditions (Le peuple de l’horloge); the lack of understanding
between urban dwellers and Morocco’s Berber peoples living in rural
areas (Tiphinar); and the disaffection and hopelessness in the lives of
young men (L’os de fer).
Lasri founded Ali n’ Productions under the tutelage of well-known
filmmaker Nabyl Ayouch, whom Lasri credits with having mentored
him in launching his career. The independent-minded Lasri receives
no funding from the CCM, and, therefore, the themes and messages of
his films demonstrate a more edgy street savvy and critical scrutiny
of the sociopolitical realms of Morocco. Ali n’ Productions has been
instrumental in funding Lasri’s films and supporting his very inde-
pendent ideals about how the medium can best be used to express the
culture of Morocco’s youth.
 86 / Bad Boys, Drugs, and Rock ’n’ Roll

L’os de fer is an example of Lasri’s desire to “paint a picture of Mo-

roccan society that is founded on satire and the symbolic. It is a cry
of distress about the indifference and stereotypes that society uses
to describe young people” (El Mazouari 2007, n.p.). The film is the
story of youth told exclusively by and for them. It is also a celebration
of Morocco’s hip-hop generation that owes its musical allegiance to
Gnawa bands, past and present, whose music is unique to the Maghreb
where it was founded. Well-known traditional music of bands such as
De Nass El Ghiwane, Jil Jilala à Hoba Hoba Spirit, Amarg Fusion,
and Abs is mixed with the tunes of contemporary Moroccan rap-
pers. As Lasri demonstrates, the contemporary owes its unique hip-
hop styles to its forefathers. Rappers Fnaïre, Bigg, H-Kayne, Koman,
Rass Derb, Casa Crew, Fes City Clan, Hel-LMkane, Stylsouss, Awah,
Ahmed Sultan, Negus4never, and Outcry are some of the featured art-
ists whose songs are constantly present as a backdrop to Lasri’s film.
The messages of rappers are gleaned from the universal ones of the
genre: calling on youth to defy authority, rise up and take what should
be theirs.
The title L’os de fer is derived from the expression “the iron bone,”
an imaginary bone of exhausted energy that poor and homeless (pri-
marily young) people gnaw on in order to keep going on and on and
on. Metaphorically, the bone is a point of degraded energy that trans-
lates into a state of chaos and disorder, never ceasing to augment in
size, squalor, and instability. As Lasri explains in an interview, the
heart of The Iron Bone is reached “quand les rêves crèvent l’homme
[et il] s’arrête sur place comme un automate sans ressources” (when
dreams kill a man and he stops in his tracks like an automat without
resources) (Najeb 2008, n.p.). Lasri’s characters, three young Moroc-
can men—Ash (Mohammed Aouragh), Mikhi (Mustapha Houari), and
Moulay (Tarik Boukhari)—“are members of a huge armada of people
who find themselves in a train station looking at trains leaving for un-
certain futures.” In contrast to the majority who are beaten down and
humiliated by poverty and despair, and who generally resign them-
selves to accepting their fate (or train to nowhere), the young men in
Lasri’s film seize their condemned futures in order to change them
(n.p.). Their decision results in psychological damage, total despair,
and eventual suicide.
Hicham Lasri’s film seeks to capture the essence of contemporary
times in Morocco. He equally searches to avoid clichés and stereo-
types often associated with those communities afflicted with misfor-
 The Urban Stories of Morocco / 87

tune, street violence, and marginalization from mainstream society.

As a universal message, the filmmaker incites his audiences to inter-
rogate the ills of today’s modern societies in which class and wealth
disparity are predominant. His “haïtistes” live in Agadir, Morocco,
but could easily be found in the mean streets of L.A., Chicago, Paris,
or Berlin. They meld in with the dusty, hot decrepit derbs (neighbor-
hoods) in which they live.
Agadir, far from the bustling streets of Casablanca, is known for
its beaches, which are favorite resort spots for European (particularly
French) tourists. Like other urban centers condemned by haphazard
urban planning and overwhelming numbers of poor and destitute
people migrating from rural areas, Agadir suffers its own modern so-
cial ills. This large city, the Berber capital of the south, is particularly
interesting because it is the one urban center in Morocco that has
been hailed as “modern” and completely representative of twentieth-
century Moroccan architecture. The earthquake that flattened it in
1960 lasted only fifteen seconds but left little standing, and approxi-
mately fifteen thousand people dead. The destruction required that
the city be completely rebuilt a few kilometers from its original loca-
tion. Agadir in Berber means “wall,” or an enclosed, fortressed city.
Thus, the city’s meaning as construed in the context of Lasri’s film
becomes interesting on many levels. Where once Agadir was fortified,
after the earthquake the city became wall-less. However, Lasri’s three
young protagonists constantly must struggle against a multitude of
barriers—either perceived or real—that both the city and society
construe for them as marginalized victims. Agadir itself is often cast
as a victim in contemporary Morocco: the farthest city in the south,
more Berber than Arab, cut off from the more dynamic regions of the
country, which leaves little opportunity for those who seek employ-
ment and a means of eking out a living.
In L’os de fer, the protagonists’ stories are told as a series of flash-
backs by all participants who are interrogated by a filmmaker sitting
in a director’s chair on the platform of a dimly lit studio. The language
is that of the streets: Darija (colloquial Moroccan Arabic), mixed with
the particular linguistic features of young people who live on the edge
in les quartiers populaires. With lights, cameras, and crew surrounding
the one big armchair from which each character delivers his or her
narrative to the director, Lasri’s story unfolds. The visual images of
characters’ faces on TV screens as they are filmed by the crew are
often distorted, breaking up into static. The takes are fast-forwarded
 88 / Bad Boys, Drugs, and Rock ’n’ Roll

or replayed, creating overlaps and repetitions in the stories of not

only the three men but those who knew them, saw them, or witnessed
their recklessness. Even the protagonists, older and dressed as suc-
cessful, accomplished men, comment on their own stories as they, too,
sit in the armchair to answer the director’s questions.
Bouncing handheld camera shots move between the present, the
past, and the surreal of the young men’s consciousnesses. One mo-
ment they are on the bus they have hijacked, the next by the sea,
sitting on the sand with only an old wrecked boat behind them. The
boat, a recurring image throughout the film, is stuck in the sand, much
like the three young men’s lives are stuck in inertia. Their lives keep
repeating, like a broken record that plays the same story over and
over again. Yet, being stuck is not simply the purview of the young
and powerless. Inspector Daoud, sent to take Ash and Mikhi in, also
repeats the refrain: “We are all caught in a scratched record that keeps
repeating.”
The mechanical aspects of the film evoke a technologically satu-
rated milieu that definitely sets Lasri’s generation apart from older
filmmakers. His is a generation that depends on the technological
functions of the modern age—iPods, digital cameras, cell phones, and
television. Technology—its access and its inaccessibility—dictates
the success or failure of each character’s survival in society, as the
film reveals. Ash can get by day to day only by being plugged into
his Walkman, and Moulay counts on texting to “speak” for him, since
he is mute. Like a machine, the lives of these young men are manipu-
lated by the mechanical routines of the global age. To ensure the com-
prehension of this idea, Lasri constantly flashes the phrase “Insert
Coin(s)” on the screen, and Fast-Forward and Rewind buttons meld
into the images and decors of his cinematographic palette. Like in (K)
rêve!, the filmmaker asks whether some technological Big Brother is
directing our stories. Do we really have control over our lives and
our futures?
L’os de fer opens with the three leading protagonists leaning up
against a wall, their silhouettes traced around them in red spray paint
in graffiti-like fashion. Outlined on the wall, like the body tracings
of a crime scene, their cut-out beings are left behind them; the only
mark on society they will ever make. The young men are fixed in in-
delible spray paint in the world as haïtistes living in one small corner
of the quartier populaire. Their silhouettes on the wall also serve as
 The Urban Stories of Morocco / 89

a foreshadowing of the events to come. As is revealed slowly to the

audience, they are dead men walking.
Ash lives in a dream world filled with the hip-hop, rap, and raï
music to which he listens constantly on his outdated Walkman (too
poor to buy a more advanced iPod), trying not to think about any-
thing else. His whole world is his mother and his two friends, Mikhi
and Moulay. Mikhi is enraged and unemployed and states that he has
nothing to lose because he’s “going to die anyway.” He therefore dedi-
cates his time to finding “causes” that can bring him meaning. Moulay
is mute and communicates by texting messages on his cell phone. He
is the only one of the three to have succeeded in obtaining his bac-
calaureate (high school diploma) and desires to attend university but
cannot come up with the 120 dirhams (about US$15) for the bus pass
that will get him there.
Mikhi and Ash invest all their energy in trying to help Moulay
attain his goal, which ultimately leads them into an abyss of failure.
They beat up small-time dealers and street sellers to no avail; 120 dir-
hams might as well be a thousand. They visit Lady Steel Toe (Siham
Afoiz), named for the steel-toed boots she wears (“No jerk can ever
stamp on my toes”). Interestingly, unlike Casanegra and Les anges de
Satan, in which women are simply backdrops, cast as objects of sexual
desire with very little dialogue, in L’os de fer Lady Steel Toe offers a
rarely seen depiction of young women in Morocco. Although playing
a minor role, Lasri makes sure that audiences understand she is sure
of herself, stands her ground with men, and, certainly, is not going to
be anyone’s doormat. She knows what men probably think about her,
but she doesn’t care:
Whores, chics, babes, tarts, birds, skanks, hos, sluts, cunts,
twats, dames, all ’n all, it’s just a hormone thing. It’s just “Vi-
rility” as my grandpa used to say. . . . Guys need tenderness.
They need a girl who can spice up their lives. They all come
from ordinary families where women take care of everything;
women feed them, women give them something to drink,
women make them sleep. . . . 
Lady Steel Toe is a young woman from the hood who, after telling
the three young men that “pussies like them are always getting into
trouble,” says she won’t loan them the money, but will give them a flag
she made herself “for a nonexistent country . . . the flag of a virgin
 90 / Bad Boys, Drugs, and Rock ’n’ Roll

land; no jerk found it before, it’s the place of a so-called future.” Mikhi,
unimpressed by the flag, tells her that they come out of desperation:
Listen, Lady Steel Toe, we are the generation that doesn’t
need to wake up in the morning. No French colonizer to
fight, no road of unity to build, no Green March to walk. We
are unlikely to be Berber or able to fight for our origins. Pal-
estine is too far away. Iraq is lost. We haven’t studied enough
to have a sit-in in front of Parliament. Government jobs are
just shit. So we are just passing through this life and moving
to hell instead of moving to Europe.
In one short monologue, Mikhi describes his generation as the first
in Morocco not to have a cause since independence from the French in
1956. In the relative stability and openness found in today’s Moroc-
can society of the new millennium, cultivated by King Mohammed
VI, causes such as the Green March of 1975 are events of the young
men’s parents’ history. Thousands of Moroccans were urged by Has-
san II to march to the border of the Western Sahara and cross over the
line, symbolically claiming the region for Morocco from Spain. At the
same time, this political act was meant to demonstrate national unity
and absolute allegiance to the monarchy of King Hassan II. Even now
in Morocco, where freedom of speech is increasingly exercised, the
right to protest is not an option for the unskilled and the uneducated
who, as Mikhi says, “cannot go before Parliament and demand jobs”
like the recent university graduates one sees demonstrating in the
streets of Rabat. Mikhi, Ash, and Moulay make up parts of the unseen
masses; the poor who do not have “something to rely on to exist.” Fol-
lowing the interlude with Lady Steel Toe, and out of desperation, the
three hijack a bus and its passengers in order to obtain the 120 dir-
hams that have become symbolically attached to achieving something
in a society that will not acknowledge them.
The bus, previously used as a lieu générateur for political commen-
tary in Lasri’s short film Ali J’nah Freestyle, again spawns dialogues on
the ills of modern society among the protagonists, their hostages, and
the police chief who comes to arrest them. The bus is another visual
metaphor for the static, stuck life from which the protagonists cannot
extract themselves. Although metaphorically the bus also represents
the possibility of a means of motion to somewhere else, if only they
could use it to get there, it ironically becomes a prison in which they
 The Urban Stories of Morocco / 91

are definitively trapped. Physically, the bus is wedged in the sand when
one of the many police officers called to the scene shoots out its tires. It
is now the no-man’s-land in which the three young men, like K in (K)
reve! as well as a whole generation of young people, are lost. This no-
man’s-land becomes fragile as it teeters on its blown-out tires, finally
propped up by the policemen with a couple of two-by-fours in the hope
of lasting long enough to bide negotiating time with Ash and Mikhi,
who have violently threatened the passengers held inside.
Inspector Daoud (Hassan Badida), who “has no teeth,” both liter-
ally and figuratively, is called to the scene to handle the situation.
Broken down and embittered by his twenty years on the force, Daoud
halfheartedly throws himself into the situation. He tries to encour-
age the hostage takers to give up, only his microphone doesn’t work.
When he tries to speak into it, only hissing and sputtering come out
the other end. He is inaudible and, as he says, “just one of the fucked-
up . . . in a world of fuckups” who will never be heard.
Hicham Lasri’s film paints a pessimistic view of the plight of the
majority of young people living in Morocco. His characters are not
redeemed at the end of the film, nor do they all survive to change
the course of the fate that seems to have already been meted out for
them. Once Mikhi and Ash see that there is no exit, they tell mute
Moulay to pretend he is one of the passengers so he won’t be linked
to their crime. Ash, talking one last time to his mother on Moulay’s
cell phone, realizes that she is having a heart attack. Mikhi decides
they must run for it. He exits the bus in a hail of gunfire that kills
him on the spot. The Flag of No Country, given to the men by Lady
Steel Toe, is wrapped around his body. Ash decides that his only fate is
suicide, since he cannot face twenty-five years in prison “in the dark.”
“I’m a light bug,” he quips. He, too, runs outside the bus, knocks down
the two-by-fours propping it up, lies down next to Mikhi, and waits
for the bus to topple over. Moulay watches the bloody scene unfold
behind the bus window. He, too, is a prisoner within its metallic walls.
When the bus does finally roll over on its side, killing Ash and im-
prisoning all aboard in a pile of metal and sand, Lasri’s message ar-
rives at its end. The bus’s final resting place is in the dusty neglected
backdrop of the poorer areas surrounding Agadir. A town gener-
ally known for its tourist resorts, and as a popular destination for
Europeans, is revealed as a place of utter destitution. “What are eyes
good for if they only see despair,” states Inspector Daoud as the film’s
 92 / Bad Boys, Drugs, and Rock ’n’ Roll

“machine” comes to a grinding halt; the words “Insert Coin” flashing

on the screen.

Ahmed Boulane’s Les Anges de Satan (2007):

Drugs, Sin, and Rock ’n’ Roll

Like Casanegra, Les anges de Satan by Ahmed Boulane created quite a

stir when it was released in March 2007. Based on the real events of
“l’affaire des sataniques” (the affair of Satan worshippers) that took
place in 2003, Boulane tells the tale of thirteen young heavy-metal
band members who were tried for crimes “against Islam.” The film’s
publicity poster aptly captures (in French) the heart of the film: “Au
Maroc les jeunes sont arrêtés et jugés. Leur seule crime: aimer la mu-
sique” (In Morocco young people are arrested and judged. Their only
crime: loving music).
The premiere of Boulane’s most controversial film occurred on
February 28, 2007, at the huge Megaramma Cinémas in Casablanca.
Everyone connected to filmmaking in Morocco was present, as well
as many journalists, writers, and people of the Moroccan elite (gov-
ernment officials, the minister of culture, etc.). The opening credits of
the film are introduced by an invisible narrator who states in French
that “cette histoire est inspirée de faits reels” (this story is inspired by
real events) as the debut unfolds at a heavy-metal concert where the
band is playing to a packed house. Are we in Morocco, Europe, or the
United States? It’s difficult to decipher from the noise, the screaming
youths in the audience, and the heavy-metal rockers decked out in
goth attire, routine for Anglo-European aficionados. For Boulane, like
Marrakchi, it is important that his audience understands that, in the
era of globalization, young people are basically the same no matter
where one travels. They all share similar hedonistic hopes and dreams
and are, after all, the future generations of the New Morocco and
the globe.
Access to personal freedom of choice in contemporary Moroccan
society is at the root of the 2003 events surrounding the trial and
judgment of the band. “La liberté ne se conceptualise pas. Elle se
vit” (Freedom isn’t conceptualized. It’s lived), Boulane notes in an
interview (Faquihi 2007, n.p.). Almost exactly four years earlier, in
February 2003, thirteen young heavy-metal rockers were incarcer-
ated, accused of taking drugs, satanic worship, and defamation of the
 The Urban Stories of Morocco / 93

Islamic faith. The fourteenth person charged was a young café owner,
Mohammed Ali Kamel Abdou Youssef, originally from Egypt, who
was accused of letting the band members meet in his café. Except for
playing the music, none of the charges were true. The worst drug
offense of which the young men were guilty was smoking hashish.
They were primarily from upper-middle-class Casablancan fami-
lies. The judge ruled against them based on heavy-metal T-shirts
with English slogans such as “Kiss My Ass” written on them, skulls
and crossbones found in the band’s studio, and other goth attire and
paraphernalia. The defense for three of the detainees, who were par-
ticularly harassed by the presiding judge, declared in court: “These
young people have committed no crime. . . . Their only fault was to
have played music in different cultural venues in Casablanca, notably
at the FOL” (la Fondation des oeuvres laïques, the Foundation for
Secular Works) (Chadi 2003, 5).
Boulane’s film suggests that this last point is the reason for the
vindictive judicial outcome against the young men by the Moroccan
courts. The very notion of a secular band playing Western music at
a time when the West was perceived as increasingly hostile to Islam
and Muslim countries (the United States had just invaded Iraq) is
explained in the film as being at the root of excessively harsh rul-
ings against the band members. The second reason for the conserva-
tive judicial decision was the 2002 legislative elections that gave the
Islamic PJD (Party for Justice and Development) a significant amount
of seats in the Moroccan Parliament. These events, as Le journal heb-
domadaire points out, were representative of a new brand of Moroccan
politics that exemplified a “foi schizophrénique” (schizophrenic belief)
completely counter to what the post Lead Years were supposed to
represent. The first issue stemming from the “affaire,” which entered
public intellectual debates in French and Arabic, is represented by
the questions: Was Morocco heading toward an Islamic fundamental-
ist state? Would the country experience what had already transpired
next door in Algeria?

Moroccan society brutally woke up with a sinking feeling,

that Morocco was sliding little by little into Islamism with-
out being able to do anything about it. Yes, certainly, we were
profoundly Muslim, but the recent specter of an Algeria
ravaged by a long civil war between Islamists and forces of
order, with more than 100,000 deaths to consider, didn’t lend
 94 / Bad Boys, Drugs, and Rock ’n’ Roll

to optimism, or even more when specialists on the question

did their utmost to point out that the Morocco of the 2000s
was strongly reminiscent of the neighbor to the east during
the 1980s.5

Immediately after his film was released, Boulane was accused of

not accurately portraying the events as they transpired in 2003. He
interviewed only one or two of the youths detained and, as one of the
young men noted, did not inquire further into details of their ordeal:
“Ahmed Boulane discussed his scenario with some among us with-
out ever completely consulting us, listening to what we might have
suffered during this period, without ever asking us questions.” To
this accusation, Boulane remarks: “It wasn’t necessary to speak with
all fourteen. . . . I’m not making a psychological film” (Semlali 2007,
n.p.). We can only wonder to what the filmmaker was referring: Psy-
chological to what extent? When is reality not real when making a
film based on real events?
The tension between reality and fiction makes Boulane’s film
somewhat conflicted in the messages it wants to portray. It becomes
basically a docudrama about an event that marked a setback for the
democratic post–Lead Years movement in Morocco. While most
events are true, Boulane embellished some that, in the end, succeeded
in discrediting his overall goals. Certain scenes in which some of
the young men are questioned by authorities and then are implied
to be tortured never happened. The roughing up of a conscientious
reporter who seeks to know the truth and organize public opinion in
support of the rockers also never happened. However, the dubious
trial did take place. One critic noted that the right-wing conservative
Islamist judge who sentenced them to prison time for the defamation
of Islam, although true, is “la réalité adaptée” (adapted reality). The
judge’s comments were transcribed in an interview and printed in
newspapers across Morocco (Semlali 2007, n.p.).
Boulane’s screenplay is deficient in dialogue and plot development.
Many also asked, why make a film about an event whose conclusion
we already know? The film does make a point of exposing a judicial
and law enforcement system that definitely needs scrutiny. It equally
reveals the insidious infiltration of Islamic orthodoxy into what many
had hoped, following the Lead Years, would be a secular judiciary
branch that operated independently of religious dogma. Boulane does
expose the fact that, even after the bombings in spring 2007 in Casa-
 The Urban Stories of Morocco / 95

blanca, religious extremism is still prevalent in Morocco. The film

also demonstrates the overwhelming support by Moroccan citizens
for secular democratic reform at the time of the trials. Boulane’s many
scenes of the demonstrations in Casablanca and Rabat, where thou-
sands led chants and brandished banners and posters condemning the
trials as mockeries of the supposed democratic reforms taking place
in 2003, remind audiences of the importance of staying vigilant in
order to extract “the demons that have seized the system” (Semlali
2007, n.p.).
Boulane’s film offers a sociocultural and political commentary on
contemporary times. However, it does not offer any prescriptions with
the hope of solving Morocco’s social ills; rather, it reveals the reality
facing the youth of Morocco today. Les anges de Satan, like Casanegra
and the following films analyzed in this chapter, serve as visual mem-
ory documents, reminding audiences that the past still looms large in
the present and, at any time, the abuses of the Lead Years could once
again become a reality.

Farida Benlyazid’s Casablanca (2002):

Corruption, Power, and Greed in the City

Farida Benlyazid’s 2002 film, whose script she wrote in collaboration

with Ahmed Boulane, is adapted after author and civil rights activist
Rida Lamrini’s novel Les puissants de Casablanca (The Powerful of Casa­
blanca, 1999), which is the first installment in a trilogy entitled La
saga des puissants de Casablanca. The filmmaker uses many of the most
well-known actors working in Morocco today such as Lounis Migri
(Amine) and Amal Ayouch (Talabi’s wife), both of whom have played
a variety of characters in film and television productions. Lamrini’s
saga accurately depicts a moment in Moroccan history that inevitably
put the country on the road to the eventually, more democratically
reformed nation of the new millennium. To understand the film, audi-
ences need to have read the books. Therefore, Benlyazid’s rendition
is definitely not marketable internationally because of its plot, which
follows very insular sociocultural and political events that took place
in Morocco in the late 1990s. The film opens inside a car driving the
streets of Casablanca at night. We see only the driver’s hands, but as-
sume the person is one of the “puissants,” the powerful men who rule
the streets, the banks, the police, and other institutions in Morocco.
 96 / Bad Boys, Drugs, and Rock ’n’ Roll

Lamrini’s trilogy begins with Les puissants de Casablanca, published

in 1999. This first novel launches a complex story that becomes
more nuanced as the narrative and its sequels progress. Each work
adds more characters and plot twists. The film, like the novel, begins
with Casablanca, depicted as an immense city divided along lines of
class and economic wealth. The opening scene, like the novel, takes
place in Derb Talian, the old colonial quarter that, at the beginning
of the twentieth century, housed Italian merchant families benefiting
from their economic investments in the French colonial protector-
ate. Today Derb Talian (talian is a derivative in Moroccan Arabic for
italien in French) is inhabited by “[des] centains sinon des milliers de
jeunes, avec ou sans diplômes, totalement perdus et sans avenir” (by
hundreds, if not thousands of young people, with or without diplo-
mas, totally lost and without a future) who must steal to live (Lamrini
1999, 21). It is here where Ba Lahcen (played by Mohammed Razine),
a simple uneducated man who ekes out a living selling vegetables on
the street, begins his journey through Benlyazid’s film. Ba Lahcen is
one of the “petites gens” (little people) who become victimized by the
power of the mighty and their prowess in wielding it.
A nostalgia for the better times of the past, where perhaps people
were more honest (although this past discounts the brutality of the
colonizer), is revealed in the opening conversation between Ba Lah-
cen and his daughter, Aïcha. She encounters him in one of the squalid
streets of Casablanca where he is gazing at an old, decrepit build-
ing constructed by the Italians in the nineteenth century. When she
asks him why he is staring at the tenement, he remarks: “Looking at
architecture. . . . This was a nice building before . . . The Italians were
amazing builders.” She responds: “During your time things were bet-
ter. You had a home and a store, but since Mom died, things just get
worse and worse.”
The didactic prose and stilted narrative of the film are rooted in
Lamrini’s original novel, which is meant to instruct audiences on the ills
lurking within their society. The author originally revealed that all his
characters are based on real people and that none of his stories are sen-
sationalized or invented. Audiences who screened the film in 2002 easily
recognized the events occurring in Morocco during the years 1996–2003.
In Lamrini’s novel, these years are divided into three time periods that
revolve around specific historical events: 1996–1998 (l’assainissement,
an anti-corruption campaign); 1999–2001 (the death of Hassan II and
September 11, 2001); and 2001–2003 (free-trade agreements with the
 The Urban Stories of Morocco / 97

United States and Europe that have decimated Morocco’s agricultural

trade balance; the Casablanca bombings; and the country’s ongoing
struggle against Islamic fanaticism). The film, unfortunately, is much
less detailed and fails to put together a timeline in a cohesive manner,
although it ambitiously tries to follow the novel’s plot.
In the first novel, Les puissants de Casablanca, Lamrini concentrates
primarily on the waning years of Hassan II’s reign, and on the king’s
campaigns of attempted “assainissement” (literally sterilization or
cleansing) of the many corrupt systems in Morocco. Assainissement
was partly due to international pressure on Hassan II to make his
regime more transparent and responsible for the socioeconomic crises
in Morocco that caused a rippling effect throughout the Maghreb.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) also played a role, holding
the country hostage as it promised debt relief in exchange for the de-
mocratization of Moroccan institutions. In 1996–97, at the height of
the “assainissement,” the measures succeeded only in forcing more in-
nocent people into prison and giving those who had power full license
to wield it indiscriminately.
Lamrini himself was a victim of the government’s “housecleaning.”
His personal experience is reified in his novel and Benlyazid’s film
through the character Amine, who loses his tea import business and is
the victim of false accusations, which he tries to disprove in the second
novel, Les rapaces (The Vultures). This second volume, which contin-
ues the saga of the characters from the underclass, is condensed into
Benlyazid’s film in order to round out the entire plot. The characters
are Ba Lahcen; his daughter, Aïcha; her brother, Ali, who becomes an
Islamic fundamentalist; and Amine, a small businessman who comes
back to Morocco after having lived ten years in Canada (Lamrini’s
own story). The protagonist, Youssef, a journalist who spent twelve
years in prison for having simply been in the wrong place at the wrong
time during the Hassan II regime, is also a central player in Lamrini’s
Saga and the film. Youssef and Amine are from the middle class, and
so is Bachir, the incorruptible police inspector who, along with them,
devotes his energy to fighting the tyranny of “les puissants.” These
“powerful ones” are the corrupt Talabi, a member of Parliament, and
his friend Yamini, the head of a bank that conducts shady deals with
the French. As mentioned previously, these characters are based on
real-life people, recognizable to Moroccan audiences.
Lamrini’s trilogy weaves a very simple detective story with com-
mentary on the social ills plaguing contemporary Morocco. Only
 98 / Bad Boys, Drugs, and Rock ’n’ Roll

some of these commentaries are highlighted in the film. Ba Lahcen’s

daughter, Aïcha, witnesses the murder of her friend Lamia by Jamal
Yamani and his cousin Karim Talabi after she refuses to submit to
Jamal’s sexual advances. Both young women were picked up after
being lured by the luxurious fast car and the seemingly gentlemanly
airs of the rich young men. Aïcha flees and clandestinely escapes to
Italy (a repeated theme in the many Moroccan novels and films that
seek to draw attention to the hundreds who risk their lives every year
to cross the Mediterranean in tiny boats, hoping for a better life in
Europe). Although she is in Italy, eventually marries an Italian, and
has a child, Aïcha never loses sight of her goal to bring her assail-
ants to justice. She finds a human rights lawyer in France who ac-
cepts her case. Meanwhile, she contacts Amine, her former boss, who
works with Bachir and Youssef to expose the corruption of Talabi and
Yamani. Her mission is to put their sons, Jamal and Karim, on trial for
Lamia’s murder.
Lamrini’s second and third novels offer the rest of the story, which,
in the film, is haphazardly used to fill in missing information about
the characters. Youssef,6 the journalist trying to break the story on
corruption and also reveal Yamani’s and Talabi’s role in the murder, is
sent to jail for defamation. The two “puissants” are never brought to
trial. Even though the French human rights lawyer Jupin (not in the
film) is able to obtain passports and visas to France for Aïcha’s father
and brother, he fails in his efforts to prosecute Yamani and Talabi as
well as their guilty sons, Jamal and Karim, for Lamia’s death.7
At the end of the film, Inspector Bachir is unable to close his case
and bring Yamini and Talabi to justice. Tired and ready to retire,
he quips to his wife: “Luckily there’s retirement . . . and we can go
far away from all this noise. . . . This city is like an ogress.” As for
journalist Youssef, commenting on the fledgling openness of the
Moroccan political system, he is skeptical, noting that “things never
change.” Small-time businessman Amine is absolved of the trumped-
up corruption charges the government’s assainissement program has
accused him of, but he is left bitter, wondering out loud to his wife,
“Should we have come back here from Canada?” Her response: “Each
society has its problems and we have to educate our children to adapt
to them . . . and to adapt to the values of our country.”
Lamrini’s saga of more than four hundred pages accurately depicts
the Morocco of today as mired in the painful struggles of its transi-
tion to a more democratic society. Regrettably, due to an almost un-
 The Urban Stories of Morocco / 99

Fig. 3.5. The slums of Derb Talien with La Grande Mosquée built by Hassan II
in the background

intelligible plot Benlyazid’s film falls short of being able to offer audi-
ences a cogent assessment of the societal changes depicted so well in
Lamrini’s novels. The film does succeed on a certain level at revealing
a Morocco that one still sees in the streets of Casablanca and Rabat.
These cities are tainted by the disparity between class and economic
strata, the tensions between modernity and traditionalism, the un-
even politics of human rights and old totalitarian practices. Tensions
in the film and disparities between classes are metaphorically con-
strued in certain shots of Casablanca taken either from high up to
depict actions by the “powerful,” or at street level when filming scenes
in the Derb Talien, the tenement area next to La Grande Mosquée.
The mosque is, in the beginning of the film, half obscured by the early
morning Casablancan fog. However, by the end it shines in full day-
light in the backdrops of certain scenes, thus symbolically denoting
the idea that perhaps corruption can be cleaned up and evil thwarted,
just not at the end of this film.
Benlyazid, known for her internationally acclaimed, women-
centered films Door to the Sky (1989) and Women’s Wiles (1999)
 100 / Bad Boys, Drugs, and Rock ’n’ Roll

(discussed in chapter 5), seems to grapple with how best to render the
huge saga in a two-hour film. Rida Lamrini expressed in an interview
that he was disappointed in the film because he felt it only glossed
over the important political events he depicts in his novels.8 Yet, like
Casanegra, Les anges de Satan, and L’os de fer, Casablanca does capture
the stresses of a city and a people that are caught between the past and
the present, unable to discern clearly how to proceed to the future.

The films discussed in this chapter demonstrate the overarching

view that modernity in the age of globalization does not always pre-
dict a clear path to cosmopolitanism, wealth, and assurance of a bet-
ter life. The city is hostile and represents a Westernized conception of
social being that, more often than not, corrupts indigenous ways of life.
These films question the paths Morocco has taken in order to encour-
age audiences to take a moment to ponder the price that must be paid
to survive in the dystopias of the modern age.
 4

Prison, Torture, and Testimony

Retelling the Memories of the Lead Years

Since 1999, filmmakers have sought to depict the terror of the Lead
Years on-screen. Some of these films have been more successful (in
terms of style, tightness of screenplay, and filming) than others at
conveying to audiences the suffering of victims. Certain films express
an urgency as they seek to rectify a past that has not been recounted
but risks being forgotten by Morocco’s younger generations. Plots
tend to evoke the feeling that the stories had to be told as quickly as
possible, lest they be forgotten. Indeed, when we consider that Moroc-
co’s population has a median age of twenty-three, the most repressive
years of the Lead Years (1968–80) for the young are quickly becoming
simple “bribes de mémoire” (memory snippets), passed down as oral
narratives by their parents.1 Hanane Ibrahimi, leading actress in the
film version of La chambre noire (The black room, 2004), and twenty-
four years old at the time, stressed in an interview how important it
was for her to portray the events of the 1970s, the time frame of the
film, because she does realize the significance of the sacrifice of the
older generation: “It’s thanks to the struggles and suffering of past
generations that we have acquired certain rights” (Bernichi, n.p.).
Three principal films dealing with prison and torture during the
Lead Years have been made in Moroccan Arabic since 1999. Jawhara
(2003), La chambre noire (The black room, 2004), and Mémoire en dé-
tention (Memory in detention, 2004) were released in theaters over
a two-year span from 2003 to 2004; all were subtitled in French. In
 102 / Prison, Torture, and Testimony

addition to these longs métrages (feature-length films), a short film,

Faux pas (False steps, 2003) by Lahcen Zinoun, narrated in French,
metaphorically depicts the kidnapping of several prominent activists
during the Lead Years. The film J’ai vu tuer Ben Barka (I saw Ben
Barka get killed, 2005), which explores the abduction, torture, and
assassination of Ben Barka, was a CCM-French coproduction, made
by Serge Le Péron and Saïd Smihi, both residing in France. These
films’ themes are raw and graphic, but true to the stories of torture
and abuse they seek to depict. The CCM’s support attests to the more
open climate and Moroccans’ willingness to confront the past.
Films made about human rights abuses and the incarcerations of
numerous innocents during the Lead Years have been inspired by La
littérature carcérale (prison literature), which has become increasingly
popular as Morocco delves into the egregious violations committed
in its past. Since 1999, la mémoire refoulée (suppressed memory) of
this dark period has been depicted on the screen as filmmakers have
explored a past pregnant with untold stories about abductions, disap-
pearances, and flagrant abuses of civil liberties.
Accurately documenting history is imperative in order to establish
a collective conscience for Morocco that can critically interrogate
how abuse of human rights has influenced the political interwork-
ing of Moroccan politics. Filmmakers who have tackled the daring
texts of the muted history of Morocco are Hassan Benjelloun, Saâd
Chraïbi, Lahcen Zinoun, and Jillali Ferhati. Their film texts ferret out
the suppressed memories of an entire generation. These filmmakers
also realize what French historian Maurice Halbwachs noted as he
documented the impact of World War I trauma on collective memory
in Europe: that (re)constructing the past always implies accurately
recording memory that “must start from shared data or conceptions.”
Halbwachs emphasized that “we always carry with us a number of
distinct persons” and, therefore, “our memories remain collective”
(1980, 31).
Documenting suppressed memory in contemporary times through
testimonies—rendered both on the screen and on the page—is an in-
tegral part of the individual’s, as well as the Moroccan collective’s,
search for a new identity in the post Lead Years. This travail de mé-
moire (memory work) mandates “the reappropriation and negotiation
that each person must do with respect to his past in order to prog-
ress in his own future individuality” (Zekri 2006). The films analyzed
in this chapter are what French historian Pierre Nora defines as
 Retelling the Memories of the Lead Years / 103

“memory sites,” tragic representations important for linking together

historical memory, the individual’s remembrances, and the vitality of
a nation’s identity:
Ultimately, memory constrains the behavior of individuals,
and individuals alone. By defining the relation to the past,
it shapes the future. This “law of remembrance” has great
coercive force: for the individual, the discovery of roots, of
“belonging” to some group, becomes the source of identity,
its true and hidden meaning. (1992, 11)
What is interesting in Morocco is that many perpetrators of tor-
ture and abuse during the Lead Years are still in power. The collec-
tive denial, or refoulement (repression) of memory, which denies the
Moroccan people justice and closure, also prohibits the proper con-
struction of memory sites to begin the nation’s collective healing.
Therefore, conceptualizing a common belief system that accurately
reflects the past remains elusive. Commenting on the government’s
denial of the abuse he and other inmates suffered at the hands of tor-
turers in Tazmamart prison during the Lead Years, Ahmed Mar-
zouki, author of Tazmamart: Cellule 10 (2001, Tazmamart: Cell 10),
notes that Moroccan officials consistently refused to acknowledge the
existence of prisons, particularly Tazmamart, long after they were
exposed to the international community:
Tazmamart didn’t exist and has never existed. This was the
response of Moroccan parliamentarian Fayçal El Khatib when
coolly answering the question posed by a Western radio sta-
tion: “This supposed prison has only existed in the imagina-
tion of the enemies of our democracy.” (2001, 10)
Despite the authorities’ unwillingness to dredge up the past, en-
deavors to set records straight, particularly on human rights issues,
have gained momentum in Morocco, and film has been at the forefront
of reconstituting events few knew about during the Lead Years. Rec-
tification of historical memory has been influenced by the prolifera-
tion of testimonial writing and cinematography published and pro-
duced since 1999.2 Ahmed Marzouki’s Tazmamart: Cellule 10 was the
first novel of la littérature carcérale to be officially recognized by King
Mohammed VI and published in Morocco. Other authors and former
victims such as Mohammed Raïss (De Skhirat à Tazmamart: Retour du
bout de l’enfer, From Skhirat to Tazmamart: Return from the depths
 104 / Prison, Torture, and Testimony

of hell), translated from Arabic in 2002, like Marzouki, also recounts

the underground medieval prison located in southeastern Morocco,
which, for eighteen years, was the living tomb of fifty-eight men. The
imprisoned men’s only crime was to have obeyed the orders of superi-
ors who plotted to overthrow King Hassan II in two coup d’états that
took place in 1971 and 1972.3
For almost twenty years, the prisoners fought against madness and
inevitable death in tiny, cramped cells, designed as “living graves” for
the purpose of assuring slow extinction. In October 1991, when they
were finally released due to pressure from the international commu-
nity, only thirty-one men remained alive.4 Other authors and former
victims who have taken up the pen to tell their stories include Abdelf-
ettah Fakihani, Jaouad Mdidech, Ali and Midhat Bourequat in French,
and Fatna El Bouih in Arabic. Famous exiled authors Abdelhak Ser-
hane and Tahar Ben Jelloun have also contributed works of fiction,
based on the prisoners’ accounts, of what is now known as la littérature
carcérale. These novels, like the films analyzed here, scrutinize abuse of
human rights in Moroccan prisons as a hidden history, manipulated
by the despots and the manipulators of Morocco’s Makhzen, which
represents the omnipotent power of the monarchy and “the system.”
To counter the historical manipulations and cover-ups of the Lead
Years, authors and filmmakers use their voices to accurately depict
what should have been said.

Lahcen Zinoun’s Faux Pas (2003):

A Short Interrogation of the Past

Lahcen Zinoun, born in 1944, is best known as Morocco’s premier

dance choreographer. His Ecole de danse (School of Dance) is the
first of its kind in a country that traditionally has not embraced West-
ern classical dance. In 1958, Zinoun entered the musical conserva-
tory of Casablanca where he eventually was drawn to dance, much to
the chagrin of his father, who shunned him thereafter because of his
choice. Zinoun states in an interview, “Je me suis rendu compte que ce
n’était pas simplement la danse qui dérangeait. C’était la découverte
du corps, son affirmation, son utilisation” (I realized that it wasn’t
simply dance that bothered him. It was the discovery of the body, its
affirmation, its use) (Mirabet, n.p.).
 Retelling the Memories of the Lead Years / 105

Fig. 4.1. Lahcen Zinoun, Casablanca, 2009

In 1964, he received a first prize in dance bestowed by the Con-

servatory of Casablanca. Yet, despite the accolades that came with
the prize from the school and the authorities, Zinoun was refused a
scholarship to study dance abroad. Shortly thereafter, he left anyway
for Belgium, where he studied choreography with the famous Mau-
rice Béjart. Zinoun returned to Morocco to encourage Moroccans to
embrace dance, teaching for several years in Rabat and Casablanca
during the 1970s. However, he realized that he “was a stranger in his
own country.” His efforts in 1986 to found the National Troupe of
Traditional Dance and to promote the richness of traditional styles
met with resistance from the monarchy of Hassan II. In an interview,
Zinoun explains the hostility against him: “Le roi [Hassan II] m’a
convoqué pour me dire qu’au Maroc, on ne danse pas. Que le Maroc
était un pays d’hommes” (King Hassan II called me in order to tell
me that in Morocco we don’t dance. Morocco was a country of men)
(Mirabet, n.p.).
 106 / Prison, Torture, and Testimony

Forbidden to dance, Zinoun suffered from depression and turned

to other forms of artistic expression, primarily painting. In 1991, he
began dancing again and founded a new school of dance in Casablanca
in which his wife and sons, also accomplished dancers, have taught.5
Zinoun, drawn to many artistic forms, found that cinematography
was a means to blend the visual of his paintings with the corporeal
movements of dance. Always a sociopolitically committed activist,
Zinoun remarked in an interview that the role of the filmmaker is
to be an “individualist . . . because each person is a thermometer,
able to measure and reflect the politics of the time.” The problem in
Morocco, however, is that “there is no political support to encour-
age artists,” and artists, filmmakers, and novelists who challenge
the government are often penalized. Although the past is easier to
render on the screen and in texts, Zinoun stresses that government
officials usually just “give you a rope by which to hang yourself.”6 In
the early 2000s, the filmmaker’s shorts, Assamt (2001), Piano (2002),
Le silence (2000), and Faux pas (False steps, 2003), achieved inter-
national acclaim. His 2007 feature-length film, La beauté éparpillée
(Scattered beauty), was praised for its visual richness, evoked in
period costumes and decors.
The eighteen-minute film Faux pas reflects Zinoun’s personal ex-
periences with repression during the Lead Years under Hassan II.
The story, told from the viewpoint (and vantage point) of feet, takes
on several meanings as the film unfolds. “Faux pas” in French figura-
tively means “error,” yet in the context of the film, the term also con-
notes a “misplaced step” (the word pas literally means “step”), since
the entire film is shot from the perspective of the silent characters’
feet (both shod and bare, male and female). Aurally, “faux pas” sounds
like “faut pas” meaning “must not”—a warning—also an underlying
theme. Except for the haunting narration of the female voice that re-
counts the events of Evelyn Serfaty’s 1952 kidnapping, torture, and
subsequent imprisonment until 1956 during the waning years of
French occupation in Morocco, it is the feet of men and women who
tell the story of human rights abuse.
Zinoun’s camerawork is visually stunning as it re-creates the hor-
rors experienced during the Lead Years (1963–99) and during French
occupation (1912–56). Two periods of historical réfoulement are con-
textualized, forcing audiences to think about the thousands of Moroc-
cans who were made to “disappear” during these times; either at the
hands of the French during occupation or later in the era of Hassan
 Retelling the Memories of the Lead Years / 107

II. Faux pas tells the countless stories of the faceless masses who were
abducted, tortured, and disposed of without a trace.
The film opens with an ode to Evelyn Serfaty, sister to Abraham
Serfaty, Jewish by birth, but also a communist-activist fighting against
the French occupiers in the 1950s. Both Serfaty and his sister were
exiled to France, where they were incarcerated until 1956. Later, in
the Morocco of the 1970s, Abraham Serfaty was again imprisoned,
this time under Hassan II for his militant activism on university cam-
puses across the country with the poet-author Abdellatif Laâbi. Both
Serfaty and Laâbi founded the communist literary review Souffles, in
which they published much of their ideology calling for a multiparty
democratic political system. Therefore, Zinoun’s film is particularly
moving for Moroccan audiences who are aware of a long history of
repression and the principal players who were caught up in it: “This
film is dedicated to Evelyn Serfaty. A Moroccan, communist militant
who suffered imprisonment from 1952 to 1956 at the hands of the
French after being deported to France with her brother.” The film at
once denounces a repressive history and also reminds audiences of the
diverse population of Moroccans (Jews, Christians, Berbers, secular-
ists, and Muslims) who fought and died for independence and human
liberty in the country. At the same time, Zinoun’s anonymous feet
allude to the random abductions that took place during Hassan II’s
reign (1963–99) and about which many victims’ families still do not
have information.7
In the opening scene, feet shod in men’s black dress shoes (remi-
niscent of the styles worn in the 1950s) drunkenly stagger up a flight
of stairs before entering an apartment. The feet stumble and we hear
dripping water, which becomes louder as the feet walk unsteadily to a
sofa. The drip of a faucet, reminiscent of the water torture the French
used to make suspects reveal the whereabouts of insurgents, is un-
mistakable as it grows louder in the background. The denouement
is narrated by a woman’s voice that provides details in French about
Evelyn Serfaty’s kidnapping.
Zinoun’s mastery of artistic montage relies on contrasting oppo-
sites. The struggling feet of nefarious henchmen who have broken
into the apartment to abduct and torture are juxtaposed with the legs
and hooves of a horse running on the beach in unfettered freedom.
The feet forced under water, succumbing to torture, are contrasted
with the splash of the seawater under the horse’s hooves as it gallops
in the waves. Water is juxtaposed to the fire used to hurriedly burn
 108 / Prison, Torture, and Testimony

the papers of outlawed acts—the “faut pas”—of writings for justice:

Serfaty’s letters and poems, a picture of Che Guevara, the books of
dissidents and “agitators.” The brightly lit hallway in which feet are
dragged down a stairwell is in stark contrast to the dark nighttime
streets where feet run into nightclubs to escape in order to find com-
patriots with whom, and crowds in which, to hide.
Banal little everyday sounds and noises in Zinoun’s film become
amplified harbingers of malicious acts: a phone ringing, knocking on
a door, a woman screaming, a glass shattering on flagstones. Slats
in between stairwells become bars on windows looking through to
the bloodied, shackled feet of the incarcerated; always anonymous and
always in agony. At the beginning of the film a man’s feet are taken,
and at the end they are a woman’s. In the last scene, feet stand on a
stool before plunging toward the floor in a death by hanging. “I had to
endure all this because I’m the sister of my brother,” the voice recalls.
In the closing credits, on a silent screen, Evelyn writes: “I call upon
all members of humankind, who have a conscience, to end all persecu-
tion. Their protest will protect our women and children. [Signed by]
Evelyn.” Through Evelyn Serfaty’s story, Zinoun notes, “tribute is
paid to all Moroccan women, silenced throughout history, who fought
for the dignity of humankind while risking their lives.”
Zinoun’s deft camerawork demonstrates the power of film to
bring to light the egregious past abuses of human rights in Mo-
rocco. Yet, in 2003 when the film was made, its allusion to torture
techniques such as waterboarding and wanton incarcerations of
thousands in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo without trial or access
to judicial process cannot be discounted. Its relevance to today’s
climate of terrorism and torture makes this short silent film a testi-
mony, documenting the human rights abuses that occur every day in
countries across the globe.

Serge Le Péron and Saïd Smihi’s

J’ai Vu Tuer Ben Barka (2005):
The Docurealist Film about the Lead Years

Serge Le Péron and Saïd Smihi’s J’ai vu tuer Ben Barka is the first
feature-length docurealist film to be made on the obscure past of
Mehdi Ben Barka, the Moroccan socialist oppositional leader assas-
sinated in October 1965. French Serge Le Péron and Moroccan Saïd
 Retelling the Memories of the Lead Years / 109

Smihi joined forces to reveal all the information thus far released by
authorities in France and Morocco on what for more than forty years
has been known as “L’affaire Ben Barka.”8 While nothing exceed-
ingly new is disclosed in the film, Le Péron and Smihi offer audi-
ences a unique version of the events, reconstructed from almost all
the players involved. The “affaire” is not centered on Ben Barka, but
rather on all those who directly or indirectly were implicated in his
death: “It’s not a documentary; it’s a fiction film that doesn’t betray
reality,” state the filmmakers.9 The affair, classified as one of the most
“obscure and embarrassing events of the Fifth Republic,” is told in
three “acts” that depict flashbacks of the events before and after Ben
Barka’s assassination.10
In 1965, the Moroccan Marxist intellectual Ben Barka roamed the
world, working with the socialist leaders of the Third World Move-
ment to rectify the socioeconomic and political ills generated by years
of colonialism and Western imperialism. Ben Barka’s participation in
the populist movements of the 1960s led him to forge friendships with
people such as Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Amilcar Cabral, and Mal-
colm X. Their goal: to found unifying socialist ideologies that would
benefit the developing world. His relationships with these seminal
figures put Ben Barka’s name on every secret-service wanted list;
from France’s DST to the American CIA and, according to Ben Bar-
ka’s son Bachir, the Israeli Mossad.11 As the 1959 elected leader of the
UNFP (Union nationale des forces populaires) in Morocco, Ben Barka
posed a threat to the monarchy of Mohammed V and, subsequently,
to King Hassan II. In 1962, the opposition leader, accused falsely by
the king of plotting assassinations, fled the country. In 1965 he was
abducted by the French police under orders from Charles de Gaulle
(close friend to King Hassan II and General Oufkir, then minister of
the interior), tortured in a house in Fontenay-le-Vicomte, a suburb of
Paris, and later killed. His body was never found.
Le Péron and Smihi limit the time frame of their film to the months
leading up to Ben Barka’s kidnapping and assassination as well as
those immediately following the incident. These include highlight-
ing the mock trial in France that supposedly revealed the culprits. In
the film, Ben Barka is depicted in his 1965 true-life role as chairman
of the committee planning the January 1966 Tricontinental Confer-
ence. The conference was to take place in Havana, bringing together
dignitaries and leaders from three continents—Africa, Asia, and
Latin America—in order to discuss strategies to combat apartheid,
 110 / Prison, Torture, and Testimony

the preponderance of colonialism in certain regions, and economic

disparity in the Third World.
On October 29, 1965, as the film depicts, Ben Barka did go to the
Brasserie Lipp, Boulevard Saint Germain, Paris, to meet and discuss
a documentary film with a journalist, a film producer, and a screen-
writer. Their goal was to make a documentary about the national
liberation movements in which Ben Barka was participating. The
character Figon in Le Péron and Smihi’s film describes his proposed
documentary film as “la première fresque de la décolonisation” (the
first fresco of decolonization) as he tries to sell the idea to Georges
Franju, the chosen director for the project. According to Ben Barka’s
son Bachir, the appointment was a sham, used to entrap his father.
Upon his arrival at the restaurant, Ben Barka was met by two French
detectives who insisted that he accompany them. This was the last
time the leader was seen alive.12
Le Péron and Smihi tell their story gleaned from history. In actual
events leading up to Ben Barka’s assassination, screenwriter Mar-
guerite Duras, director Georges Franju, and the small-time bandit
Georges Figon were all either directly or indirectly players in Ben
Barka’s untimely death. In the film, as in reality, Duras and Franju,
both admirers of Ben Barka, are ignorant of the plot against him.
The real-life Franju was reported as never having recovered from his
involuntary implication in Mehdi Ben Barka’s disappearance.13 The
film’s story is told from the point of view of Figon, who, while par-
ticipating in the plot to abduct Ben Barka, is small-fry next to the
henchmen Boucheseiche, Oufkir, and Dlimi, historically the ultimate
assassins of the opposition leader.
In 1965, small-time bandit Figon, recently released from prison
after serving time for various petty crimes, tries his luck at journal-
ism and film production. Seeking funding to make a film with Franju,
Figon’s “friends” in the French government put him in contact with
Moroccan officials, who tell him they wish to make a documentary
about decolonization. They entreat Figon to contact Ben Barka,
whom they would like to act as “historical adviser” on the scenario.
In January 1966, Figon ends up assassinated after selling informa-
tion to a newsmagazine about what he saw at the house in Fontenay-
le-Vicomte where Ben Barka was tortured and believed to have been
assassinated.
J’ai vu tuer Ben Barka is particularly interesting in that it is not spe-
cifically about Ben Barka, but rather the historical events, dissemina-
 Retelling the Memories of the Lead Years / 111

tion and covering up of facts, and culpability of major political figures

living in both France and Morocco in the 1960s. Le Péron and Smihi
do not reveal any new information on the affair, but rather demand
that the annals of history divulge all information about an event that
is now more than forty years old. To date, as they stipulate at the end
of the film, there are still missing documents and inexistent files that
could offer closure, certainly as to what happened to Ben Barka’s body.
The film makes a point of drawing audiences’ attention on both sides
of the Mediterranean to the fact that the histories of both France and
Morocco would have been exceedingly different if the famous leader
had lived. The film’s story line is probably very close to reality, and
probes the national memories of Morocco and France to “faire éclater
la vérité” (expose reality), as Figon remarks when he divulges his
story to a newsmagazine under the sensationalized title “J’ai vu tuer
Ben Barka.”
Shot in the classical style of the French polars (police/detective
stories) of the 1950s and 1960s, the filmmakers capture the mood of
the times. Jazz music of the 1960s sets the tempo for scenes taken
from real documentary footage of the era mixed with those of the
film. Situating the action entirely in France points a blatant finger
at French officials’ culpability and collusion with Moroccan generals
Oufkir and Dlimi, who wanted Ben Barka dead. The rapid scenes that
present General Oufkir, Hassan II’s right-hand man, who arrives at
Fontenay to torture and then kill Ben Barka, allude to the fact that the
entire kidnapping was orchestrated by French authorities in order to
ensure the continuation of the Moroccan monarchy’s hold on power
at the time. The revelation of the truth, in the end, does not disclose
much more than, as Marguerite Duras (played by Josiane Balasko)
notes, the elimination of a man “qui était écouté aux quatre coins de la
planète” (who was listened to by the four corners of the world).
It is evident that, despite the continuing refusal of French and Mo-
roccan authorities to reveal everything about the Ben Barka affair,
the more open political climate of the post Lead Years has contrib-
uted to the airing of the dirty political laundry of the past. With re-
spect to the film itself, it most assuredly poses the question: “Is this
really a Moroccan film?” Apart from the Moroccan actors—Fayçal
Khiari (Oufkir), Mouna Fettou (Ben Barka’s wife), and Azize Kabouche
(Chtouki, member of the Moroccan secret service)—the cast is inter-
national. Ben Barka is played by the Armenian actor Simon Abkar-
ian, since the filmmakers determined that “a Moroccan actor wouldn’t
 112 / Prison, Torture, and Testimony

have had the versatility” to play the role.14 However, we could argue
that its international cast promotes a universal commitment to human
rights on a global scale.
Released in 2005, at the height of the American occupation of Iraq
and the events following September 11, 2001, that generated a preoc-
cupation with terrorism in the West, the film’s theme—establishing
justice for those who still must live under political oppression—
seems timeless. As one critic remarked, “Ben Barka est le prototype
de l’homme qu’il ne fallait pas abattre. Quand on tue Ben Barka, on se
retrouve avec Ben Laden” (Ben Barka is the prototype of the man one
should not kill. When men like Ben Barka are killed, we find ourselves
with Bin Laden) (Gourlet, n.p.).

Jillali Ferhati’s Mémoire en Détention (2004):

Turning the Page of History?

“I wanted to make a film about a character who couldn’t remember

anything, but at the time, I didn’t know what he shouldn’t remem-
ber,” states Jillali Ferhati in an interview.15 Ferhati’s film, which was
distributed across Morocco in 2004, is considered to be the best and
most effective of in-country produced films whose subjects dwell
on recapturing the past of the Lead Years.16 The filmmaker, also an
accomplished man of the stage who for years lived in exile in Paris
where he worked in various theaters, sees himself as a representative
of the people and responsible for accurately depicting their past. Fer-
hati’s films, for the most part all set in his native Tangier, include Une
brêche dans le mur (A hole in the wall, 1978), Poupées de roseau (Cane
dolls, 1981), and the compelling La plage des enfants perdus (The beach
of lost children, 1991). In 1995 he made Cheveaux du fortune (Horses
of fortune), followed by Mémoire en détention in 2004. Like Benjelloun,
Ferhati is known for making films with engaging social messages,
and Mémoire en détention is no exception to this rule. However, at no
time does the filmmaker directly name or blame perpetrators, col-
laborators, or torturers. Rather, the plot’s vagueness with regard to a
specific time frame encourages audiences to think about freedom and
human rights on a universal level, as precious and always in danger
of being abused.
Ferhati not only directs but also plays the leading role of Mokhtar
Alyouni, who has spent years in detention. He has been incarcerated
 Retelling the Memories of the Lead Years / 113

for such a long time that he and the prison officials have forgotten
why he was originally imprisoned. Little by little, we learn that his
crime was political activism (presumed in the 1970s, although dates
are not precise) in one of the many militant groups of the era. In
prison he is befriended by a much younger prisoner, Zoubeir, who was
incarcerated for car theft but whose father, also detained and tortured,
died in prison for being a political activist “in the past.” Zoubeir’s
father and Mokhtar, as later revealed, knew each other, as did the
many others who were rounded up and imprisoned because Mokhtar’s
father revealed their names in an effort to free his son.
In the end, almost all died in prison. When Mokhtar is finally re-
leased, amnesiac and with no family to claim him, the prison warden
commands Zoubeir, also freed after three years of detention, to help
the elderly man retrace his steps in order to recover his memory. With
only the addresses on empty envelopes from the letters Mokhtar
keeps in a box, Zoubeir not only looks for people who can recognize
the old man and clue him in on his past, he also seeks to find out from
Mokhtar the truth about his own father. Zoubeir’s last memory of his
father is a violent one, captured in one childhood moment when at
eight years old he saw him dragged from his home.
Complicating the plot, the prison warden tells Zoubeir that there
were two Mokhtar Alyounis in prison. One was a bank executive, con-
demned for having siphoned millions from a bank, and the other a po-
litical activist. One Alyouni was released “years ago.” And, because the
prison warden claims that “we have no more political activists locked
up in this country,” the Mokhtar being released must be the banker.
When Zoubeir protests, wondering why he should help the man, the
warden tells him that Mokhtar still is an amnesiac who needs to find
his family. Zoubeir is also doubtful about which Alyouni was really
released years earlier and is drawn to the project by the possibility of
finding out about his father’s past. The mistaken/switched identity,
a seemingly weak link in the script in the beginning, is later clari-
fied when audiences are told the bank executive bribed Mokhtar the
activist to “give him his identity” so that he could get out of prison.
Mokhtar the activist readily agreed because of the overwhelming
guilt he felt for having “betrayed” the list of names to his father, who
later communicated them to the authorities.
The question then arises: Is Mokhtar faking his amnesia in order
to forget the betrayal, or is he really suffering from memory loss? As
the two protagonists crisscross the country (primarily the north),
 114 / Prison, Torture, and Testimony

tracking down the few militant activists who are left, Zoubeir ferrets
out the truth about his father’s and Mokhtar’s pasts. When Mokhtar
asks Zoubeir why he cares, he replies, “I’m trying to figure out what
you have in your head, but what can you expect? Our generation
doesn’t understand anything.” Ferhati’s call to the younger genera-
tions not to forget the past of the Lead Years is blatantly expressed
in Zoubeir’s quest for the truth in what he sees as a past that is fad-
ing into obscurity. Ferhati, like Benjelloun, Boulane, and others, im-
presses upon audiences that although things seem right now, the past
is fragile and must be remembered. Zoubeir emphatically points out:
“One day we live in fear and the next in peace . . . but I have to look
for my past.”
Certain symbols in Ferhati’s film are understood to represent a
particular era. Like many of his contemporaries, the filmmaker seeks
to challenge audiences to think in universal terms about the human
condition. His central message is a warning that in any society, at any
time, atrocities, kidnappings, and torture could occur. These warnings
are symbolically gathered and guarded in Mokhtar’s cardboard box,
which he constantly carries under his arm, not letting Zoubeir get
near it. The letters symbolically represent the murky secrets that are
still left to be uncovered, as well as the thousands whose testimonies
will forever lie buried in the past unless they are opened and exposed.
Parallel to the events alluded to in the past, in the present Zou-
beir reads outloud news clippings to Mokhtar that describe Moroc-
co’s ongoing efforts to rectify the abuses of the Lead Years through
an “association des droits de l’homme” (human rights organization),
which is not specifically named but is understood to be the Instance
d’equité et de reconciliation (IER, Equity and Reconciliation Commit-
tee), formed in 2004 by Mohammed VI to document abuses of human
rights under Hassan II. Zoubeir, reading outloud to Mokhtar from
a French-language newspaper, announces that the task of the asso-
ciation will be to aid “tous les anciens détenus politiques” (all former
political prisoners) to obtain reparations. The association will
primo faire une enquête sur les abus de pouvoir dont été
victimes les citoyens, arrêtés illégalement pour leurs idées
politiques ; secundo, la restitution des corps des prison-
niers d’opinion morts sous la torture dans les geôles ; tertio,
l’indemnisation au profit des anciens détenus politiques en
ayant droits.
 Retelling the Memories of the Lead Years / 115

(first conduct an investigation into the abuses of power that

victimized citizens who were arrested for their political ideas;
second, [it will demand] the return of the remains of prison-
ers who died under torture in prison; third, [it will demand]
indemnities for former prisoners.)
These three items, of course, formed the driving mission of the
IER, which later handed its report to King Mohammed VI in 2005.
Many former victims and their families, however, have stated that the
efforts of the commission were too little too late. The “too little, too
late” message is interwoven into the film with snippets of scenes from
the past of bodies being tortured and dark cells and long corridors.
Reading in French, Zoubeir/Ferhati also invokes the many testimonial
accounts that have been published in recent years by small French-
language publishers operating in Morocco. These include Tarik Edi-
tions, Editions Eddif, and Editions Marsam, whose publishers have
committed themselves to authors who were once also former victims
and are seeking to recount their stories in order to reveal what has
never been told.17
In an effort to unearth Mokhtar’s buried past, Zoubeir takes him
to an abandoned prison. Zoubeir, also an aspiring theater actor, deliv-
ers a monologue as Mokhtar wanders in the dark, abandoned halls:
“They poured cold water on my head; they hurt me . . . What did they
want? What did I do to them? God help me.” The delivery does suc-
ceed in opening the old man’s mind, from which emerge scenes of
his own torture. These become more vivid when Zoubeir tells him
that the abandoned prison is actually “the first prison where you were
taken the first time.” Ironically, he notes, “They now want to make it
into a cultural center.” He closes his soliloquy by poetically adding: “If
only memories would die before the bodies that house them do.”
Ferhati makes a point of rendering memory as a tangible thing
throughout his film. Not only is Mokhtar’s locked box of letters a
symbol, but memory is also “experienced” as something that inhabits
the body. Mokhtar’s recurring bloody nose, which begins flowing at
inopportune times, is a constant reminder of his past torture. In a final
flashback in the schoolroom where he once taught math, the bloody
nose of the present is linked to a young Mokhtar who was beaten and
his head slammed against a wall before being taken away and impris-
oned. The school, which is visited by Zoubeir and Mokhtar at the
end of the film, becomes a lieu de mémoire where the old man finally
 116 / Prison, Torture, and Testimony

regains and relives his past. It is also the place where Zahra (Fatima
Loukili) comes to after a long trek home from exile. She has received
Mokhtar’s letters over the years and now, deciding that things are safe
in present-day Morocco, decides to come home to look for him. She,
too, was an activist and a teacher, once Mokhtar’s lover, and eventu-
ally taken and imprisoned for unspecified political crimes.
In the end, memory is restored and broken lives are put back to-
gether. Mokhtar and Zahra, as living former detainees, rediscover
each other. Others, like Zoubeir’s father, are now properly remem-
bered in the present. Yet, Ferhati’s title, Mémoire en détention (Memory
in detention, or Imprisoned memory, depending on how one prefers
to translate it into English), remains a telling metaphor for an entire
country held hostage to its past. It still remains to be seen how the
future will continue to pay homage to those who lost their lives
during the Lead Years. Like the film, the ending is left open-ended,
leading audiences to the conclusion that there is much left to be writ-
ten about torture and imprisonment in the annals of history.

Hassan Benjelloun’s La Chambre Noire (2004):

Uncovering the Dark Recesses of the Past

La chambre noire, by filmmaker Hassan Benjelloun, is based on Jaouad

Mdidech’s book of the same title. Although Mdidech collaborated
on the film’s screenplay, it diverges from the book by cultivating the
love story between Kamal (played by Mohammed Nadif) and Najat
(Hanane Ibrahimi), fiancés who are only briefly mentioned in Mdi-
dech’s autobiography. In the film, both protagonists work at the air-
port and seem apolitical and oblivious to the impending doom that
awaits them. The 1970s, the backdrop for the film’s plot, represent
some of the most repressive years of Hassan II’s reign, during which
the hunt for and incarceration of Marxist-Leninist supporters was in
its heyday. Benjelloun emphasizes the randomness of kidnappings and
interrogations. From one moment to the next, people disappear with-
out a trace. Although he left his militant student days behind him, is a
respectable airport employee, and professes to be apolitical, Kamal is
abducted from his place of employment and sequestered. He is inter-
rogated about his years as a rebel at the university and his activity as
a leader of the “March 23rd” Marxist-Leninist group. Without trial
or access to a lawyer, he is thrown in prison at Derb Moulay Chérif
 Retelling the Memories of the Lead Years / 117

(which is also the Arabic title of the film). While there, he is forced
to reveal the names of his former comrades, even though he confesses
not to have seen them for years.
Najat tries to find him, risking her own family’s safety. When she
does finally locate him in prison and secures visitation rights, Kamal
tells her to “marry someone else” because he knows he will be con-
demned to years in prison. Subsequently, the prisoners engage in a
hunger strike in order to bring attention to their plight, notably to
improve conditions in the prison and demand a trial to face their ac-
cusers. Najat and Kamal are separated forever. Most of the second half
of the film concentrates on revealing the unjust legal system, lawyers
who refused to represent detainees, and the resulting mock trial the
prisoners end up facing. The unjust outcome leads their lawyers to
storm out of the courtroom, disgusted by the judge’s flagrant abuse of
human rights as the prisoners chant, “The road of struggle calls us.”
Despite the media’s support, documenting their strike and de-
mands for their freedom in the papers, all prisoners are condemned
to between fourteen (Mdidech) and twenty-two years of prison. Najat
marries someone else. Years later, in the concluding scene of the film,
she meets Mdidech again as he signs copies of his work, La chambre
noire, in a bookstore. Najat, with her little girl, approaches her former
lover for his signature. The film ends on a somewhat upbeat note, but
also alludes to the bitter legacy of the thousands of lives of the disap-
peared cut short during the Lead Years.
La chambre noire, although winning the L’étalon d’argent award at
FESPACO in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) in 2005, received mixed
reviews at home. The weekly francophone newsmagazine TelQuel dis-
paraged the film, emphasizing that “we learned nothing new that we
didn’t already know.”18 Although the work reveals few tidbits of new
information, it still serves as a cinematic, documented memory that
is, at least, preserved on film. Like the novel of the same title, the film
demonstrates the closeness and solidarity of the prison detainees as
they struggle to endure their incarceration. The masses of prisoners
Benjelloun depicts in the film expose just how widespread torture and
detention were during the Lead Years.
Hassan Benjelloun’s retelling of history is important and, like his
other films Jugement d’une femme and Où vas-tu Moshé?, serves to edu-
cate the young about the flagrant abuse of human rights during the
past, particularly the Lead Years. The filmmaker inserts real footage
of television clips from the Green March, a nationalist propaganda
 118 / Prison, Torture, and Testimony

stunt orchestrated by Hassan II on November 6, 1975. Nearly 350,000

unarmed Moroccans were urged to march to the border of the West-
ern Sahara and cross over the line, symbolically claiming the region
for Morocco from Spain. The green flags waved by participants also
symbolically demonstrated national unity, allegiance to the king, and
faith in Islam. Supporters also waved the Moroccan flag’s colors, red
and green (red for freedom, green for Islam), and pictures of Hassan
II, thus presenting the public’s en masse approbation for the king.19
The Green March became the monarchy’s symbol for Islam, openly
countering Marxist-Leninist ideology that supported pluralist party
politics and secular institutions. Hassan II, therefore, successfully sup-
pressed the ideals of the opposition and the political enfranchisement
of hundreds who sought to counter his rule. Benjelloun’s depiction
of the march in conjunction with the trials is daring and reveals the
monarchy’s flagrant abuse of power while it sought to divert atten-
tion from the human rights abuses taking place in its prisons. Audi-
ences viewing the film in the present are reminded of just how politics
and ideology can be used to manipulate, coerce, and destroy a people.
These haunting facts, many believe, are still a possible reality for con-
temporary Morocco.

Saâd Chraïbi’s Jawhara (2003):

Prison Seen from a Child’s Eyes

Saâd Chraïbi’s Jawhara (2003) also opened to mixed reviews in

Morocco. It was the first film to visually depict on-screen the in-
carceration of women and the abuse of their civil rights during the
Lead Years. To date, Jawhara is the only film ever to have been made
about women’s lives in prison. The suffering of women during the
Lead Years tends to be a subject avoided by filmmakers and activists.
Authors also have been hesitant to evoke the issue. It was not until
the late 1990s and the subsequent publication of Fatna El Bouhi’s tes-
timonial, Une femme nommée Rachid (A woman named Rachid, 2002),
that women began to put voices and faces to the horror they endured.
Women’s accounts of prison rape and torture have been something of
a mystery, since upon their release the majority preferred to remain
silent about their experiences because of the stigma associated with
rape. Speaking for her sisters, also detained, raped, and silenced, El
Bouhi noted in a 2004 interview that women were still hesitant to
 Retelling the Memories of the Lead Years / 119

speak of the past because her nation, even with the efforts of the IER,
was unable to address and heal the open wounds of its past:
Je comprends, reprend-t-elle, la pudeur des témoignages de
femmes qui témoignent aujourd’hui dans le cadre des audi-
tions de l’IER. On ne peut pas, comme cela, sans préparation,
sans soutien et suivi psychologique, surgir des oubliettes,
vider toutes ses tripes et retourner à l’anonymat comme si
de rien n’était.

(I understand, she remarks, the modesty of the testimonies by

the women who gave evidence today in the IER sessions. We
can’t, just like that, without preparation, without support and
psychological counseling, spring forth from oblivion, empty
our guts, and return to anonymity as if nothing happened.)
(Boukhari 2006, n.p.)
Ironically, former female prisoners are also viewed, because of their
gender, as martyrs and, therefore, their stories are considered virtu-
ally untouchable by the public. The general societal belief is that fe-
male testimonials are still too horrific to be imparted to the public
in Morocco. Former female prisoners are simply silent gardiennes de
la mémoire (female memory keepers), the example par excellence of a
purity “spoliée par le Makhzen” (stained by the Makhzen) (Zekri 2006,
205–6).20 “Woman as the sacred heart of the nation” is still a prevalent
theme in Moroccan culture. For a woman to admit that she was tor-
tured and “spoiled,” and for her to reveal that some of her sisters were
even killed by men who were supposed to cherish and protect them,
would mean that Moroccans themselves had sought to annihilate their
own beings—their own mothers—and the lifeblood of the nation.
Moroccan feminist, psychiatrist, and author Rita El Khayat ex-
plains that the belief that women are the engenderers of national pu-
rity is still the norm in societies where “groups of kinship superior to
the immediate family dominate” (2002, 56). This is true for Moroccan
society as well as elsewhere in the Arab world. As stipulated in El
Khayat’s Les femmes arabes (Arab women) and, indeed, throughout her
impressive oeuvre, women are never viewed as individuals or equal
partners in marriage because the larger society will always take pre-
cedence over them. Therefore, for a woman to speak, and even exist as
a completely self-sufficient individual, is an act of defiance in the face
of society and the nation (56).21
 120 / Prison, Torture, and Testimony

Jawhara breaks with stereotype to give women a voice in the tell-

ing of their own stories of the past. The film is the account of a girl
born in prison after her mother, Safia, is raped by a prison warden.
Jawhara is destined to remain in prison as long as her mother’s sen-
tence is sustained. Set in the 1970s and told as a flashback by the now
adult Jawhara, Safia, the girl’s mother, is a member of a small amateur
theater troupe that decides to put on a politically charged antigovern-
ment play. Saïd, her lover and director of the show, is also taken by
the police but escapes. He flees with tapes from the police station that
contain disturbing images of torture and interrogation. Although
other members of the troupe are eventually freed, Safia remains in
custody, relocated to a farm detention center in the desert while police
hunt for Saïd and the damning tapes. She and her daughter remain
hostages there for years. The filmmaker’s allusion to the historical
eighteen-year imprisonment of the Oufkir family in the desert during
Hassan II’s reign is not lost on audiences. Safia becomes ill and dies,
leaving Jawhara, who is later reunited with Saïd to fend for herself.
Jawhara blends anachronism with fantasy to weave a tale that should
have made more of an impact on audiences but instead received luke-
warm reception from critics. Chraïbi films scenes in present-day Casa-
blanca, altering little to plunge the time frame back into the 1970s.
The filmmaker claimed that this was done on purpose to remind audi-
ences that the Lead Years are ever present and that prison and torture
are still part of our everyday realities (Raji, n.p.). This noble cause,
however, is undermined by certain scenes rendered in cartoon format.
The fantastic, animated court scenes do not justly portray the reality
of corrupt judges, co-opted testimony, and manipulated officials at the
hands of the Makhzen. These abrupt transitions, between animated
scenes and Jawhara and her mother in prison, are interchanged with
little warning and no context for viewers. The story becomes a con-
fused rendition of historical memory.
However, as a document that bears witness to the thousands of
silenced voices of the past, the film serves as a noteworthy histori-
cal marker. Like all the films discussed in this chapter, it offers a first
timid step toward depicting the Lead Years on screen. Films about
incarceration have opened a cinematic dialogue about torture and
human rights that continues to fuel discussion.
In general, Moroccan prison films, produced by filmmakers as
survivors of the Lead Years, leave us with a lasting lesson. These
film texts “demeurent” (reside) in the present as “proof . . . untenable”
 Retelling the Memories of the Lead Years / 121

and as fragile, shared “secrets” between the victim and their public
(Derrida 2000, 30). Moroccan filmmakers transmit to us that it is im-
perative for a nation seeking to construct a collective conscience in
the present not to forget the events of the past. The collective lieux
de mémoire must provide places that are “created by the interaction
between memory and history, an interaction resulting in a mutual
[understanding]” between the state and its people (Nora 1992, 11).
Only this pact will ensure a national identity and a historical con-
sciousness that will be equitable and accurately defined for all, guar-
anteeing the New Morocco’s well-being for future generations.
 5

Women’s Voices
Documenting Morocco through Feminine Lenses

African filmmakers, male and female, particularly in the last fifteen

years, have repeatedly given women central roles that “challenge the
misrepresentations, preconceptions and stereotypes that abound [in
the West] vis-à-vis the position and role of women in Africa” (Thack-
way 2003, 147). In order to understand the strength and power of
African women as depicted on-screen, we only need to consider Sen-
egalese Sembène Ousmane’s entire oeuvre, notably, Black Girl (1968),
Ceddo (1976), Faat Kiné (2001), and Molaadé (2005). Younger male
cineastes such as Senegalese Moussa Sene Absa (Tableau Ferraille,
1997; and Madame Brouette, 2002) and Malian Abderrahmane Sis-
sako (Bamako, 2006 ) have continued Sembene’s thematic structure
favoring strong women’s roles through which grand social-realist
messages are conveyed. Women filmmakers from West Africa also
demonstrate in their films that women are the pillars of community
and country in Africa. Pioneering Senegalese filmmaker Safi Faye’s
Kaddu beykat (The voice of the peasant, 1975) and her more recent
compatriots, Khady Sylla (Les bijoux, 1997) and Fatou Kandé Senghor
(Diola Tigi, a documentary film, 2008), have contributed significantly
to the advancement of women’s filmmaking in West Africa.

African Womanism on the Screen

African women filmmakers, particularly from francophone sub-

Saharan Africa, promote an Africana womanist philosophy that is
 Documenting Morocco through Feminine Lenses / 123

rooted in Afrocentrist ideology. Afrocentrist womanists define femi-

nism and their roles and places in their respective societies on their
own terms, irrespective of Western feminist paradigms. Africana
womanism relies on the “specificity” of the African woman’s condi-
tion, while contextualizing a feminism that expresses “African wom-
en’s yearning [for new conceptions of themselves] as opposed to an
imposed or dogmatic position” (Kolawole 1997, 22). Translating this
“yearning” is a defining trait most noticeable in sub-Saharan African
women’s cinematography.
The heroines of African films by earlier, groundbreaking women
filmmakers such as Senegalese Safi Faye and Togolese Anne-Laure
Folly reflect a “transformation of consciousness” that depicts African
women as “genuinely free to forge new combinations of personality
traits . . . without the need . . . to imitate the model of the European,”
or dwell on traditional mores and customs that have hindered their
active agency in contemporary African societies (Lazreg 1994, 322).
Female filmmakers have promoted African womanism as an applicable
ideology through which to transcribe the realities of African wom-
en’s lives. The term Africana is meant to be inclusive of all women of
the continent and in the African diaspora and therefore not defined
by skin color. African womanists seek to work within the system of
established African societies in order to foster change not only for
women, but men too. It is a humanist approach that relies on the cen-
trality of the African experience as promoted within Afrocentrist ide-
ology. Women filmmakers on the continent have contended for a long
time that sexual difference is but one component of their movement
championing the rights of women in Africa and across the diaspora.
Early on, women filmmakers began to formulate the specificity of
African life and women’s roles within it on the screen. The films of
filmmakers Safi Faye, Anne-Laure Folly, and the later Khady Sylla
and Fatou Kandé Senghor echo the socially transformative theories
promoted by scholars such as Susan Arndt, Mary E. Kolawole, and
Clenora Hudson-Weems. These scholars maintain that what is essen-
tial to an Africana woman’s identity and agency is very different from
what white Western European and American feminists have strug-
gled for since the inception of Western feminist movements.
Films such as Senegalese Khady Sylla’s Les bijoux (Jewelry, 1996);
Burkina Fasian Fanta Regina Nacro’s Puk nini (1995) and Le truc de
Konaté (Konaté’s Thing, 1997); Zimbabwean Tsitsi Dangarembga’s
Everyone’s Child (1996) and Mother’s Day (2004); Togolese Anne-Laure
 124 / Women’s Voices

Folly’s Femmes aux yeux ouverts (Women with open eyes, 1993); Sen-
egalese Safi Faye’s Mossane (1996); and Angolian/Guadeloupean Sara
Maldoror’s earlier Sambizanga (1972) reflect African women scholars’
argument for an ideology that does not align itself with Western fem-
inism, which is viewed by many as historically alienating women of
color along lines of race and class. Yet African women filmmakers, like
their sisters in the West, would agree that cinema has the power to
“produce and maintain a fascinating hold on its spectator by mobiliz-
ing pleasure . . . [particularly] the unconscious desire of the [female]
subject” (Flitterman-Lewis 1996, 2–3).
However, since the function of cinema in African society compels
other scenarios to be written for and about women that have less to do
with objectivity/desire and more with social change, women cineastes
working on the continent tend not to fall into the traps of construct-
ing uniquely feminine images in terms of sexual pleasure. African
women’s filmmaking tends not to ascribe to Western preconceived
notions of desire, or what Laura Mulvey claimed in her groundbreak-
ing article “Visual Pleasure” as “mainstream film [that] coded the
erotic into the language of the dominant patriarchal order” (1992, 6).
This being said, however, African women filmmakers do promote the
idea in their films that there is “[an] alternative . . . thrill that comes
from leaving the past behind without rejecting it, transcending out-
worn or oppressive forms, or daring to break with normal pleasurable
expectations in order to conceive a new language of desire” (6). Afri-
can women’s lenses conceptualize desire as shared by both men and
women. “Women directors have referred to African men and women’s
shared struggle,” points out Thackway in her study. Both “make films
that revalue African subjects and highlight/counter structures that
oppress both sexes” in order to show audiences that “African men and
women consider women’s emancipation as the way forward” (Thack-
way 2003, 149).
Like their counterparts in sub-Saharan Africa, contemporary Mo-
roccan women filmmakers are influencing the views and opinions of
their spectators through thought-provoking films that promote Afri-
cana womanist agendas. In the last fifteen years, the films of cineastes
Farida Benlyazid, Zakia Tahiri, Narjiss Nejjar, and Yasmine Kassari,
among others, have documented the sociopolitical and cultural transi-
tions taking place now with respect to the roles and place of women
in Moroccan society, as well as in a larger, global context. Since
1999, particularly, women filmmakers have militantly expressed their
 Documenting Morocco through Feminine Lenses / 125

unique experiences in today’s New Morocco. While their films delve

into the challenges of a country in transition, they also reveal certain
universalities about the female experience in contemporary society.
These include woman’s capacity to persevere against the constraints
of family and traditionalism and the conflicts that women face as indi-
viduals who must negotiate with the omnipotent collective that takes
precedence in Moroccan society. The women filmmakers studied in
this chapter demonstrate an “écriture féminine” on the screen that
visually depicts the voice of Moroccan women, a voice that is diverse
and, at the same time, unified in its expression of feminine being in
contemporary times.

The Uniqueness of Moroccan Women’s Filmmaking

Although they came relatively late to filmmaking, Moroccan female

cineastes have set their cinematography apart from their sisters’ in
Algeria and Tunisia. Moroccan women’s themes in the new mil-
lennium are socially engaged, thought-provoking, and, with regard
to male filmmakers, more readily cast women in take-charge roles.
While promoting the credo of womanist agendas, their films are less
didactic than those found in sub-Saharan Africa.
Moroccan womanist films such as Les yeux secs (2002, by Narjiss
Nejjar) and L’enfant endormi (2004, by Yasmine Kassari) promote the
enfranchisement, socially, culturally and, to some extent, politically, of
women. Yet, comparing them with recent films by Algerians Yamina
Bachir Chouikh (Rachida, 2002) and Djamila Sahraoui (Barakat!, 2006)
and Tunisians Nadia El Fani (Bedwin Hacker, 2002) and Raja Amari
(Satin Rouge, 2002), Moroccan women’s themes tend to be much more
subtle and subdued, as Denise Brahimi explains: “When comparing
Moroccan cinema to Algerian [we note that] . . . pain is expressed by
silence, rather than by screams” (2009, 35). Moroccan women’s recent
films are, with the exception perhaps of Marock by Leïla Marrakchi,
aimed at audiences to encourage social activism in the mainstream,
rather than to shock cultural values. Although it is difficult to de-
fend this subtle difference, I would argue that the militancy levels in
women’s films in Morocco differ from those in Algeria and Tunisia
because of the historical events of the past and the present.
Algeria’s and Tunisia’s revolutionary movements of the late 1950s,
the subsequent founding of quasi-socialist governments that used film
 126 / Women’s Voices

as propaganda to promote state-building ideologies, as well as the in-

fluence of Third Cinema movements in the 1960s on filmmaking in
both countries, most definitely shaped how their industries would
make films in the next decades. Civil war in Algeria in the 1990s and
the aggressive Arabization of society in Tunisia (particularly since
September 11, 2001) also have contributed to how the industries have
shaped production patterns. The civil war in Algeria virtually made
filmmaking in-country impossible, as indicates Merzak Allouache,
who, when making Bab El-Oued City (1994) had to clandestinely shoot
in undisclosed locations for fear of reprisals from the Islamic funda-
mentalists.1
Filmmakers in Tunisia, known for their auteur individualism as
well as their fondness for making aesthetic films, rather than the
populist and epic ones favored by Morocco, have suffered declining
audience attendance because there is no national film institute from
which to secure investment (such as the “avance sur recettes” policy
in Morocco and Algeria) or money for advertising for films produced
in country. As Boughedir suggests, Tunisia “suffers from too much
individualism” and, in the absence of a national cinema institution
(the Société anonyme Tunisienne de production et d’expansion ciné-
matographique does not have the same prominent place in cultural
production as does the CCM in Morocco), depends too much on pri-
vate investment, which has led to a decline in the number of films
made each year: “Unlike Tunisia, Morocco remarkably based the
organization of its audiovisual industry on solidarity. Moroccan cin-
ema is funded by a part of the TV advertising income [of the coun-
try] and thus [has been able] to increase production.”2 These specific
realities in each of the three Maghrebian countries have also influ-
enced how and why women make their films.
A strong feminist movement came to Tunisia on the heels of Habib
Bourghiba’s revolution to end colonialism in the late 1950s. To date,
Tunisia still leads Arab nations in the constitutional guarantees and
rights given to women. For example, Tunisia is the only country in
the Arab world to have constitutionally banned polygamy. Despite
recent setbacks due to the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in North
Africa, which have brought with it conservative values, Tunisia still
remains a beacon for women’s rights in the Arab world. Women film-
makers have been actively making films in the country since the late
1970s, and their films have been somewhat funded by SATPEC and by
international promoters in France, Belgium, and Spain. Interestingly,
 Documenting Morocco through Feminine Lenses / 127

the prevalence of women-made films by filmmakers such as Moufida

Tlatli, Nadia El Fani, and Raja Amari have “traumatized male cin-
eastes” who see their “loss of masculine identity” as the result of “the
power and autonomy of Tunisian women . . . which have created cul-
tural trauma” (Brahimi 2009, 59–60).
Algeria’s recent history, certainly in the 1980s with the rise in
power of the FIS (Front Islamique du salut, Islamic Front) party,
failed elections in 1988 and ensuing riots (which killed more than
five hundred youths), and the subsequent civil war in the 1990s (the
violence from which particularly targeted women in the most hei-
nous manners), has made “the category ‘woman’ . . . indistinguishable
from the . . . purely religious and the profane” (Lazreg 1994, 129).
Despite the religious fundamentalist violence waged against them in
the 1990s, women have continued to be present “visibly” in Algerian
society. Their noticeable physical presence in public space in postcolo-
nial society has its roots in the Marxist revolution of 1954–62, which
finally ended in liberation in 1962. The war could not have been won
without the participation of women.
Contrary to women’s “mantle of invisibility” in the nineteenth
century, which was a product of cultural taboos as much as “colo-
nial policies,” after the war of liberation women gained modest
ground sociopolitically once the colonial regime had been toppled.
Although postcolonial female emancipation in Algeria was far from
what Tunisian women experienced, Marnia Lazreg notes that “since
1962 . . . the entry of women into the worlds of school and work has
made them singularly conspicuous, considering their past invisibility”
(1994, 172). Yet, women in Algeria still have not “shared equally with
men in the benefits that accrued from the independence of their coun-
try”(119). The conflicts that characterize gender polemics in the mod-
ern state in Algeria today are reified in women’s filmmaking. There
are only four Algerian women filmmakers actually residing in Algeria
and making films: Samira Hadj Djilani, Baya Hachemi, Nadia Cherabi,
and Yamina Bachir Chouikh. These four women primarily work in
television.3 Algeria’s film industry, like much of its literary produc-
tion, has become one primarily conceived of in exile due to political
instability and violence. In recent years, the country’s instability has
been captured in feature-length films by men and women: Bab El-
Oued City (Merzak Allouach, 1994); Viva Laldjérie (Nadir Moknèche,
2004); and Barakat! (Djamila Sahraoui, 2006); as well as in documen-
taries such as Aliénations (Malek Ben Smaïl, 2004).
 128 / Women’s Voices

The film industry in Morocco, as elsewhere in the East and the

West, has been predominantly defined by men. Women’s roles in Mo-
roccan male filmmakers’ works tend to be pessimistic, casting them
often as victims of sociocultural mores, misery, and poverty. Although
many of these films speak the truth about some women’s reality (Has-
san Benjelloun’s Judgement d’une femme; Jillali Ferhati’s La plage des
enfants perdus), women filmmakers contend that these works do not
portray all parts of the sum total of their existence.
This chapter seeks to address certain pressing questions with re-
gard to women’s filmmaking in Morocco: To what extent does women’s
filmmaking accurately represent the reality of the human condition in
general, and the feminine condition specifically, in Morocco? And, if
the filmmakers truthfully do portray women’s reality, are they able to
generate awareness and discussion within Moroccan society in order
to advance sociopolitical change?

Kaïd Ensa (Women’s Wiles, 1999), Farida Benlyazid:

Women Can’t Be Put in Cages

Farida Benlyazid paved the way for women filmmakers in Morocco.

As early as the 1970s she began writing scripts for filmmakers such
as Mohammed Abderrahmane Tazi, Jillali Ferhati, and later, Hakim
Noury (Carter 2001, 344). Her most notable scripts were for the
now famous films Badis (1988) and A la recherche du mari de ma femme
(Looking for my wife’s husband, 1993), both directed by M. A. Tazi.
Benlyazid has written and directed her own films, the most known of
which include: Une porte sur le ciel (Door to the sky, 1987) and Kaïd
Ensa (Ruses de femmes, Women’s Wiles).
She shoots her films primarily in Moroccan Arabic, placing women
in roles where they are forced to “confront dramatic changes and prob-
lems in Moroccan society” (Carter 2001, 344). Often her works are ret-
rospectives on women’s place in society, dating from independence in
1956 to the mid-1990s. Her films are generally realistic, with perhaps
the exception of Women’s Wiles, and rarely allow for “magic solutions”
that will drastically alter women’s designated roles in society. Benlyaz-
id’s style draws on the tenets of social-realist filmmaking to reveal the
inequalities in traditional practices that have impeded women’s eman-
cipation in contemporary society. “Benlyazid uses her storytelling,” as
 Documenting Morocco through Feminine Lenses / 129

Fig. 5.1. Farida Benlyazid, Fez, Morocco, 2009

Carter explains, “to reveal the structures of oppression and domina-

tion, even those replicated by women themselves” (344).
In Women’s Wiles a young contemporary girl is taken back in time to
the epoch of the sultans by her mother, who tells her the story of “Lalla
Aïcha: Merchant’s Daughter,” a well-known Arab-Andalusian fairy
tale, whose main theme shows the superiority of women over men. The
film portrays a Scheherazade-type protagonist, the female storyteller
par excellence, who passes her tales on to other women. Lalla Aïcha,
daughter of a wealthy merchant, is cloistered in her garden, where she
studies flowers and music. Although set in the distant past and remi-
niscent of a tale from 1001 Arabian Nights, Aïcha counters how women
are supposed to behave by enjoying a close relationship with her father,
who admires her tenacity and strong will to get things she wants. Her
formidable personality contradicts what is viewed as women’s “proper”
behavior at the time (although not specified, the story seems set in the
eighteenth century). Lalla Aïcha also councils and acts as a business
partner to her father, who relies on her financial savvy.
One day when in her garden, the heroine realizes she is being
watched by the son of the sultan next door. He has fallen in love with
 130 / Women’s Voices

her and wants to make her his bride. However, she finds him impetu-
ous. They play a series of “ruses” on each other that become increas-
ingly vicious; including one where Aïcha dresses up as a “slave from
the Sudan,” complete with blackface, and enters the prince’s palace.
She serves him tea, slips him a potion, he falls asleep, and she shaves
off his beard (the sign of a religiously pious man). He is forced to stay
indoors, sequestered for seven days, in order to grow his beard back.
Metaphorically, Benlyazid turns the gender tables on cloistering. As
the weeks go by, neither the prince from his palace, nor Aïcha from
her garden, will allow the other to get the upper hand in their tit-
for-tat competition that is based on the question: “Are women more
intelligent than men?”
The prince asks for Lalla Aïcha’s hand in marriage, which she ac-
cepts, thinking she will be able to change him. He promptly puts her
in a dungeon cell and commands her to give in and acknowledge that
“the ruse of men is stronger than that of women.” She refuses, inciting
the prince to seek council from his confidant, a sage and bookseller
in the medina. Their conversation on the wiles of women and their
intelligence thematically offers a grounding dialogue for the rest of
the film:
Prince: Are women intelligent?
Sage: Of course. They are intelligent, and one must not for-
get that there are women sages, erudite, and even Sufis.
Prince: But their intelligence isn’t like men’s.
Sage: What do you mean? Sometimes they are more intelligent
than men.
Prince: Of course, but only from time to time, on rare occa-
sions.
Sage: Yes, a woman has children, which she must take care
of and raise. That doesn’t leave her a lot of time for other
things. Good is Woman, and Bad is Woman, and God said:
Their ruse is immense. If the truth be known, we should
hope that God doesn’t make them our enemies. . . . 
Prince: Why are they so stubborn?
To answer this question, the sage gives the prince a book by Jela-
luddin Rumi, the well-known Persian poet and sage who wrote in the
thirteenth century. The symbolic importance of this book is signifi-
cant to Benlyazid’s story. Rumi was known for promoting unconven-
tional ideals that transcended ethnic and nationalist rhetoric as well
 Documenting Morocco through Feminine Lenses / 131

as preached equality. He was also known for having founded the Mev-
levi Order, which in Turkey is recognized for its “whirling dervishes,”
dancing, and music—all viewed as atypical to traditional Islam. To
accentuate her point that there are many beautiful practices in Islam
(many of them Sufi) that are diverse and spiritual, Benlyazid follows
the conversation of the prince and the sage with a dancing scene in
which the prince’s cousin, a young woman dressed in the clothes typi-
cal of the dervishes, whirls around in a courtyard to Sufi music. She
stumbles upon the dungeon cell of Aïcha, whom she befriends. Al-
though the cousin shares the same opinions about women’s equality,
she tells her “to just give in to the Prince and admit that women are
less clever at ruses than men,” so that she can be freed. Aïcha, hold-
ing fast to her principles, remarks, “He must learn what women are
worth.”
Aïcha cleverly has her father dig a tunnel from his house to her
dungeon so that she can be with her family every day. For years, she
sets traps for the prince in various disguises: as a Bedouin princess
who lures him into her tent, a dancing woman who performs for him
on the shore of a river, and a nomadic princess who invites him to
partake of her beauty. After each tryst, she asks the prince to give
her a token of his love. She also gives birth after every encounter,
producing three children who stay with her father as she continues to
live in her dungeon cell. The ruse of all ruses remains unbeknownst
to the prince, who continues to ask her, “Lalla Aïcha, the Humiliated
One who Lives in the Cellar, which is the cleverer, men or women?”
On the day the prince decides to marry the woman who has been
chosen for him by his father the sultan, Aïcha sends her children into
his courtyard. They are bearing the gifts he bestowed on her in her
various disguises. Discovering the truth, he also admits that “woman
is not the object of desire, but the light of God.” In the end, husband
and wife, as they are, come together, both acknowledging, “We are
under the orders of God and he gave strength to men and the art of
ruses to women.”
While a seemingly banal fairy tale, Benlyazid reveals to audiences
certain themes that reflect contemporary dialogues on the emancipa-
tion of women in Moroccan society. The filmmaker’s goal is to dem-
onstrate to her viewers that women have always participated actively
and equally in Moroccan social history. Feminism was a part of Mo-
roccan life before the word actually existed, as attests her constant
reiteration of the fact that women were “sages, erudite, and members
 132 / Women’s Voices

of the Sufi order,” long before more unfavorable traditions stripped

them of their rights. Like many Maghrebian women filmmakers, such
as Tunisian Moufida Tlati (Les silences du palais, Silences of the palace,
1994) and Algerian Assia Djebar (La nouba des femmes de Mont Chen-
oua, The circle of women on Mount Chenoua, 1977), Benlyazid seeks
to revisit history in order to highlight women’s contributions to their
societies and cultures. What on the surface seems like a banal folktale
is actually a social-realist text that instructs audiences about the vital
contributions of women throughout history to Moroccan society.
Benlyazid particularly focuses on the subject of spatial divisions
between genders as a means to study and contradict the tenets of tra-
ditionalist Islamic cultures. On numerous occasions, she brings up the
subject of female sequestration. Although the heroine admits at one
moment, “We women spend our lives locked up,” she never lets this
state become her own. For the prince, Aïcha is perhaps locked away
in the cellar, but she also constantly ruptures the gender divisions
between inside and outside spaces dictated by traditional Islam. She
repeatedly freely passes from the interior spaces that confine her—
the prince’s cellar and her father’s house—to the outside world. The
heroine reveals that women are clever enough to find ways to disrupt
the status quo in order to live as equal citizens in society. Seemingly
passive, subdued “Lalla Aïcha, the Humiliated One Who Lives in the
Cellar,” as the prince continuously calls her, when in outside space
rides a horse through the forest and becomes a nomadic princess who,
reminiscent of the Kahina, a Berber queen who fought against Arab
conquerors, gives orders to her soldiers and armies.4
Benlyazid’s film also alludes to Berber culture as being perhaps
more equitable and historically offering more equality for women
than the Arab culture that conquered it in eighth century AD. When-
ever Aïcha is free in open, outside space, she dons traditional Berber
dress, employs Berber musicians to do her bidding, and favors the
abodes of large Berber tents, pitched on the banks of rivers or in the
desert. The filmmaker’s Berber-centric themes are not hidden, mak-
ing the film a harbinger announcing the thematic trends of the post
Lead Years. Unlike his father, Mohammed VI has over the past decade
promoted Berberisme as a key contributor to the uniqueness of Moroc-
can identity.
 Documenting Morocco through Feminine Lenses / 133

Les Yeux Secs (Dry Eyes, 2002), Narjiss Nejjar:

Berber Women’s Voices
Narjiss Nejjar, thirty-seven years old, is one of Morocco’s up-and-
coming women filmmakers who delves into the pertinent issues of
women’s lives. “Je fais ce que je veux, j’écris ce que je veux comme je
veux” (I do what I want, I write what I want like I want), the film-
maker exclaims, rebutting the criticism surrounding her first feature-
length film, Les yeux secs.5 As soon as the film debuted in theaters
across Morocco, it was mired in controversy, primarily because the
work exposed how rural women, in particular, are marginalized and
how their emancipation in society is still impeded by the constraints
of religious and cultural traditions and social mores. Her film exposes
how men are able to wield their power over women and control their
destinies. The film also criticizes certain taboos associated with sexu-
ality and sexual relationships between men and women, not only in
traditional milieus, but in Moroccan society as a whole: “Un peuple
est grand quand il sait dire l’amour sans honte” (A people is great
when it knows how to pronounce love without embarrassment), Nej-
jar exclaims in a line at the beginning of her film (Ganne 2003, n.p.)
Les yeux secs, shot in Tamizigh (one of the several Berber languages
of Morocco) and Moroccan Arabic, is set in the Atlas Mountain re-
gion in the villages of Tizi N’Isly and Aghbala in the province of Beni
Mellal. Tizi is inhabited entirely by women who are prostitutes. Once
a month, they are visited by men in the region, but the rest of the time
they live in total isolation. Indeed, the Beni Mellal region is known
for its isolation, destitution, and poverty. The principal actors, Mina
(Raouia) and Fahd (Khalid Benchegra), were accompanied by nonpro-
fessional actors and extras from the region. Many played themselves
and used their own names. Raouia, as the elderly Mina, tells her story
upon her release from prison in Casablanca after a twenty-five-year
period of incarceration. Her crime: prostitution in her remote village
in the Atlas Mountains. After being picked up in a raid on the village
by local authorities, she is taken to Casablanca, and forced to abandon
her eight-month-old daughter, Hala.
Upon Mina’s release, she decides to return to her village to re-
claim her daughter’s affection, though Hala has since become cold
and unforgiving. Hala is now a leader, dictating the norms of the
community’s trade in a village inhabited solely by women who re-
alize that prostitution is the only viable means for them to make a
 134 / Women’s Voices

living. Upon her return, Mina disguises her identity in order to find
out more about her daughter, who she knows will blame her for her
abandonment. Hala has instigated the draconian practice of abandon-
ing babies at birth in neighboring villages so that they will not be
obligated to continue their mothers’ trade. The women seem to have
come to a consensus that this practice is the only hope of economic
survival and assuring that their generation will be the last to serve
as prostitutes for the men in the outlying countryside. Older women
of Mina’s generation who cannot work anymore have been relegated
to the mountain caves, once used as granaries when the village was
more prosperous. As they wait to die, these mothers are basically kept
by their daughters.
Mina returns to the village with Fahd, who grew up marginalized
as an orphan, and later was a prison guard where she was incarcer-
ated. Indeed, prisons construed physically by man and nature, as well
as metaphorically rendered as societal marginalization, are constant
symbols in the film. The feeling of being hemmed in with nowhere
to go is evoked through carefully filmed scenes of women speaking
through the barred windows of their impoverished hovels, or seques-
tered within the confines of villages and caves, high up in the moun-
tains. One of the most striking symbolic prison images, marking the
division between the rural women and the rest of the outside world, is
the field of red flags Fahd and Mina encounter as they hike up to the
village on the road from Casablanca. The flags are attached to poles
stuck in the ground like an army of soldiers. In the latter part of the
film, as Fahd stands in front of the field of flags, which are also the
same color as the fields of red poppies covering the mountainsides,
Mina’s voice-over tells him that they represent the virgins who had to
give themselves up to the wiles of male clients: “On the nights of the
full moon, when men came to sully us, the youngest of the adolescent
women was chosen, and the next day, before sunrise, she would hang
her red scarf on a pole . . . the scarf of virgins.”
After her release, Fahd sees Mina on a street while driving a bus,
his most recent job. Mina proposes that he accompany her in his bus
as a business partner for a new moneymaking venture she has devised
for the village women. Her goal is to found a weaving cooperative
in the village to sell the women’s Berber carpets in Casablanca. She
hopes that they will bring lucrative profits, enabling women, old and
young, to discard prostitution as their source of income. Fahd agrees
to help fulfill her goal, stating he has nothing to lose, although he
 Documenting Morocco through Feminine Lenses / 135

knows nothing about the Berbers and does not speak the language.
Knowing she risks not being let back into the village with a man,
Mina decides to pretend Fahd is her son.
Although Hala rejects her mother and refuses to come to terms
with her, she ultimately falls in love with Fahd (who, contrary to nor-
mative masculine roles in Arab cinema, does not fall into the cinematic
trap of saving Hala as a Prince Charming). Hala’s desire for him over-
rides her belief that prostitutes cannot “love” men and that they are
unable to enter into lasting relationships with them. Fahd disproves
the stereotyped brutal man Hala has only known by offering a loving
and caring “new man” who “loses his traditional masculinity” in order
to “connect with the women of the village” (Pisters 2007, 86). Fahd
explores his devenir-femme (a becoming-woman) as he becomes more
attached to the village women and dedicated to helping them find
another means to make a living.
His relationship with Zaïnba, a young girl who is presumed to be
Hala’s daughter, and whom he befriends even though he is unable
to communicate with her, leads him to invest even more in chang-
ing the women’s seemingly condemned destiny. On the night when
the men come to the prostitutes, young Zaïnba is initiated into the
trade. Insane with grief over her violated innocence and his incapac-
ity to save her, Fahd, clad in woman’s clothing, runs into the moun-
tains. As he climbs higher into the snowy peaks, he strips himself
to his underwear, symbolically shedding himself of his appropriated
feminine identity and any possibility of bonding in solidarity with
the women of the village. Stripped naked, lying in the frigid snow, he
is fragile and vulnerable, not at all the overtly macho hero Hala had
thought he would be. In the desolate mountains, away from the con-
straints of traditional mores and archaic gender roles, it is Hala, in
the end, who comes to save him, followed by her mother. When she
finds him, the young woman covers his naked body for warmth. It is
at this point, as Fahd is treated as a vulnerable child by two mothers
who seek to protect him, that social and gender power distinctions
between men and women are virtually nullified. Nejjar leaves her
characters before a tabula rasa on which to remake their identities,
destinies, and gender roles. Both male and female roles are equalized
as they face the challenges of building a new identity and destiny for
themselves.
At the end of the film, Mina realizes that she cannot change the
mentalities of the rural men toward women, but she can work to alter
 136 / Women’s Voices

the prostitutes’ view of themselves as victims, imprisoned in what

they believe can be their only trade. She stays to found her weaving
company with the older generation of mothers and sends Fahd, Hala,
and Zaïnba to a new destination that is not defined in the conclud-
ing scenes of the film. The open ending, metaphorically rendered as
the three ride a motorcycle out of the village over the vast southern
plains of Morocco, is disconcerting. Yet, the gaping hole at the end of
the film could also be read as symbolically alluding to the uncertainty
of the lives of many Moroccan women who are engulfed by illiteracy,
poverty, and lack of resources.
Despite the symbolic images throughout her film, the feminist
messages Nejjar promotes continue to be pertinent for all Moroc-
can women: how to counter the judgment of others, live life as an
individual who enjoys full rights in civil society, and avoid being ma-
nipulated by men. In an interview, Nejjar emphasized that “je continu-
erais à harceler les consciences en faisant des films . . . des films et des
films . . . pour que nous (les femmes) ne soyons plus jamais de simples
pantins désarticulés, rasant les murs et marchant sur la pointe des
pieds, mais des citoyens à part entière” (I will continue to harass con-
sciences by making films . . . films and films . . . so that we [women]
will never again be inarticulate puppets, wallflowers walking on egg-
shells, but rather full-fledged citizens) (Ganne 2003, n.p.).
In addition to her feminist messages, Nejjar seeks to call attention
to a minority group whose destiny in the twenty-first century is pre-
carious within the scope of the modern state and the nation of Mo-
rocco (Pisters 2007, 86). The posts with the red flags, dotting the hills
like tombs, symbolically meant to represent the lives of lost virgins,
also metaphorically stand for the lost innocence of the rural Berber
communities that live marginalized existences. They have been left
destitute, impoverished, and illiterate, as the rest of urbanized Mo-
rocco launches ahead into the era of globalization.
Nejjar’s seemingly good intentions to bring light to the plight of
the Berbers were mired in controversy. Her film reified Morocco’s
need to address these isolated regions, still oppressed by pervasive
traditionalism, tribalism, and the patriarchal status quo. Despite
her perhaps good intentions, the filmmaker was accused of having
duped the illiterate female villagers into thinking they were making a
documentary about the widespread historical practice of prostitution
across Morocco. In reality, because she focused only on Tizi and Agh-
bala to delve into the topic of rural prostitution, the filmmaker was
 Documenting Morocco through Feminine Lenses / 137

accused of outing the region’s secrets, and thus adversely affecting

the populations living there. Although all agree that prostitution as
a means of generating income to stay alive in rural areas of Morocco
exists, the women of Tizi and Aghbala filed a lawsuit in 2002 against
Nejjar for defamation: “Nous avons été trompées, montrées comme
des semi-humains qui n’ont d’autre occupation que de forniquer, ce
film n’a rien à voir avec notre région, nous ne sommes pas le bordel du
Maroc” (We were duped, exposed as quasi-humans who have no other
occupation other than to fornicate. This film has nothing to do with
our region; we are not the whorehouse of Morocco).6
In a larger context, the controversy also revealed contemporary
tensions between poorer Berber areas, which claim a unique heritage
and rural way of life, and urban modern and more-Europeanized Mo-
roccans. The latter group, to which Nejjar belongs, seek to strategize
ways to bring people out of poverty but are often accused of not un-
derstanding the very areas they wish to help. Alluding to this com-
plex situation, Aïcha Aït Berri, writing for Le monde berbère, criticizes
the filmmaker, stating that her film reduces “l’identité berbère à la
prostitution en qualifiant les actrices de vraies prostituées” (Berber
identity to prostitution, equating the actresses to real prostitutes)
(Aït Berri, n.p.).
Noufissa Sbaï, author, women’s activist, the film’s producer, and
mother of Narjiss Nejjar, insisted in an interview that the accusations
and lawsuit filed by some of the Berber women were politically mo-
tivated and the result of “une grande manipulation par les hommes
de la région qui ont tenté de politiser ce film à des fins électorales” (a
huge manipulation by men of the region who wanted to politicize the
film in order to influence elections).7 The lawsuit was later dropped
due to the dedicated work in the region by several dynamic people
who saw that the money the actors earned from the benefits of the
film was genuine and would help, according to Sbaï, with “la sco-
larisation des filles . . . la santé et les droits des paysans . . . Un film
peut contribuer au développement socio-économique et donner l’oc-
casion aux plus démunis de se battre pour la prise de parole et de
décisions” (the education of girls . . . health and the rights of country
people . . . A film can contribute to socioeconomic development and
generate an occasion for the most impoverished to fight for the right
to speak and to make decisions).8
Les yeux secs remains one of the most controversial films to be made
in the post Lead Years in Morocco. It forces Moroccan audiences to
 138 / Women’s Voices

Fig. 5.2. Noufissa Sbaï, film producer and feminist activist, Rabat, Morocco, 2007

discuss sensitive topics such as social disparities due to gender, race,

class, ethnicity, language, and economic means. Equally important,
the film represents the increasing sociocultural and political inquiries
that young filmmakers, particularly women, are making in order to
effectuate positive changes in their homeland.

L’Enfant Endormi (The Sleeping Child, 2004),

Yasmine Kassari: The Myths of Modern Morocco

Yasmine Kassari, thirty-seven, like Leïla Marrakchi, is an MRE film-

maker residing in Europe. She studied medicine in Paris before enroll-
ing in the INSAS, the national film institute of Brussels. Kassari made
several short films: Le feutre noir (The black pen, 1994); Chiens errants
(Wild dogs, 1995); and Linda et Nadia (2000). In 2002, her documen-
tary Quand les homes pleurent (When men cry), about clandestine male
immigration to Spain, won critical acclaim. In 2004, Kassari com-
pleted her first feature-length film, L’enfant endormi, which although
 Documenting Morocco through Feminine Lenses / 139

Fig. 5.3. Yasmine Kassari (photo courtesy of Cinergie)

based on fiction, portrays many of the realities about clandestine im-

migration to Europe and poverty depicted in her documentary. The
docurealist style of her film is also enhanced by Kassari’s decision to
use untrained actors. Except for Rachida Brakni, a French-Algerian
actress who has won film awards for several mainstream French films
(Coline Serrau’s Chaos and Loin by André Téchiné), all other actors
were nonprofessional and came primarily from the same village. Kas-
sari notes that her decision was based on creating authenticity: “These
people are from the same region. They all come from the same tribe.
They even resemble each other physically, which is amazing.” Ironi-
cally, Kassari notes, Rachida Brakni, whose Arabic was very poor, had
to work the hardest to be authentic.9
The lavish beauty of the costumes and the unreserved camerawork
used to capture the wild expansive scenery of Kassari’s film attest to
the generous international financial backing she obtained for her pro-
duction. Despite the funding, which enabled her to make a technically
advanced film in an urban setting, Kassari chose the bleak, sparsely
populated desert-like landscape of northern Morocco. Her sets are
 140 / Women’s Voices

minimalist, highlighting the stark and barren lives of the villagers

in one of the most remote regions of the country. The nearest large
town, Taourit, is twenty kilometers away. So remote and isolated is
the backdrop to Kassari’s film that on first glance the foreign viewer
would think the story was set in an earlier century. It is only when
we are able to detect in the background modern cars, cell phones,
and the technical innovations found in Taourit that we realize Kas-
sari’s women are living in the present. The filmmaker depicts so ac-
curately what contemporary Morocco is: a country that is divided
between past and present, old and new, traditional and modern, rural
and urban.
L’enfant endormi begins with Zeineb’s wedding as she is seated,
clothed in her bridal gown, and sequestered in a room full of other
women. “Why can’t you move?” a little girl asks her. “Because I’m the
bride,” she responds. This first scene exemplifies the gender divisions
that are present throughout the film, as well as the confined lives
women in the village must live. Women are left to fend for themselves,
to persevere and endure silently while their men go off to Spain to
find work. Marriage is the fragile chain that continues to link them
to tradition and custom. As Hassan’s blind grandmother notes dis-
paragingly as she looks at her grand-daughter-to-be: “What a life
that girl will have. They marry and he leaves. Before, we married our
children so that they would go. Now we do it to ensure that they will
come home.”
Young women remain in a fixed space, married or as brides-to-be,
watched by families and governed by mothers and in-laws. Kassari
constantly reminds audiences that women’s identity and ultimate
being are defined as much by masculine oppression as the marginal-
ization, poverty, and illiteracy that are the daily realities of the village.
Zeineb marries Hassan the day before he is to leave clandestinely for
Spain to find work, like so many others from the village. His mother
urges him to think twice, “to stay here and earn your bread.” His only
response: “There is nothing here.” Not even the song the men sing
at the wedding will deter those who decide to go. The song’s stanzas
foreshadow the men’s destiny, which will be forever bleak: “In Spain
there is nothing waiting. . . . I will crisscross the continents. . . . The
uneducated man should think twice. . . . Even languages will trip you
up . . . and you, the one with the diploma that rots in a closet, and you
who aim for anything. . . . If you really want to immigrate, divorce
your lovely wife, and she will live better free.”
 Documenting Morocco through Feminine Lenses / 141

Zeineb’s wedding night leaves her pregnant. Because she is hus-

bandless, her mother-in-law decides that it is best if the young woman
puts the fetus to “sleep” with a talisman from a holy man in Touarit.
The women rely on an ancient pre-Islamic belief, which later was ad-
opted into the Islamic law that is practiced in the Maghreb and other
parts of Africa. The custom circumvents biological science in order to
make pregnancies legitimate for up to four or five years. In order to
keep family honor intact, save face if a woman becomes widowed or
pregnant out of wedlock, or if a woman needs an heir in the case of
an absent husband, she may invoke the power of “the sleeping child.”
The custom ordains that if a woman discovers she is pregnant and her
husband is “absent,” for whatever reason, she may “put her child to
sleep” until the appropriate time comes to wake it up. She simply folds
the talisman, keeps it in a box, and when she is ready, opens it in a
bucket of water and lets it sit under the stars for seven nights in order
to wake the child. The four- to five-year rule gives a woman certain
rights in the eyes of her community if she is widowed or repudiated
by helping to explain a fatherless birth: “Contrary to what one would
think, it is not a question of superstition or believing in spirits, but of
an accepted and commented-on position in Islamic legislation. The
belief in the ‘sleeping child in its mother’s womb’ responds, in fact,
to a social logic that differs from biological or scientific logic.”10 A
woman’s pregnancy thus becomes absent in her womb.
Indeed, absence—of men (fathers, brothers, sons, and husbands),
prosperity, and access to modernity—defines the thematic structures
of Kassari’s film. Lack dictates the parameters of the lives of Zeineb and
the other women of the village. After the film’s first few minutes, male
presence, for the most part, is off-camera. The videotapes the émigré
husbands send from Spain are symbolic of the presence-absence state
they represent in their women’s everyday lives. Olivier Barlet notes
that “men are both the hope and the obstacles, angels and demons [in
the film]. Above all, they continue to hover over the women’s future
like a sine qua non condition for their self-fulfillment.”11 Even when
they transgress the social norms, as Zeineb’s friend Halima does when
she considers adultery, “women remain victims of patriarchy” meted
out by the older mothers and grandmothers who act like men in their
absence (Barlet 2007, n.p.). Patriarchal domination is so inscribed
into the very essence and existence of the village, it determines the
biological rhythms of women that are deemed necessary for keeping
family and tribal structures intact.
 142 / Women’s Voices

Halima is Zeineb’s cousin and her opposite. She is fiery, defiant,

and, when she sees that her husband, Ahmed, refuses to come home
from Spain, she attempts to have an affair with Amziane, one of the
few men to have returned from Europe. Amziane explains to her that
there is nothing in Spain for immigrants. After both are badly beaten
by Halima’s husband’s family upon the discovery of their indiscretions,
Amziane comes to Halima’s window to speak to her one last time:
Halima: Why didn’t you stay in Europe?
Amziane: I didn’t like it.
Halima: Isn’t it better over there?
Amziane: Sure, for the people from there.
Halima: People do what they want there.
Amziane: Only the people from there.
Halima: As soon as Ahmed gets his papers in order, I’ll go
there.
Amziane: Halima, here you are the most beautiful woman.
Over there you will be ashamed of yourself . . . of your
color . . . of your dresses . . . 
Halima: It’s true, I’m illiterate.
Amziane: It’s not that. Groveling in foreigners’ countries is
so different from groveling in your own.
Like many Moroccan filmmakers, Yasmine Kassari wants her au-
diences on both sides of the Mediterranean to understand the loss
immigrants face when they make the choice to leave their homeland.
Life is not easier in Europe, and risking one’s life to go there does not
bring the happiness and fortune so many seek. These cruel realities
become more evident in the videotapes that are sent back from the
men in Spain. They suffer injury, unemployment, and isolation. Their
faces are marred by the bitter experience of immigration and their
disillusionments stemming from what Europe has not offered.
In contrast to the camera lens from Spain that documents the de-
feat of the village men’s lives, Zeineb and Halima’s decision to bor-
row their neighbor’s camera to videotape themselves allows the two
women a defiant voice they never have had. The “cinematographic
pen” they seize demonstrates that they are not duped by their illit-
eracy or cowed into accepting their fate in the hermetically sealed
feminine space in which they have been enclosed. Previously, where
the young women had been seen only in the background of the tapes
 Documenting Morocco through Feminine Lenses / 143

made by the mothers who spoke to their sons, Zeineb and Halima now
decide to directly engage the camera, speaking openly to their hus-
bands one to one. The lens becomes their weapon of confrontation,
and filming marks the first step to their emancipation.
Clad in their best clothes, made up with lipstick and mascara, hair
uncovered and falling around their shoulders, Halima demands to
know why Ahmed refuses to talk to her on-camera (he is seen in the
videos sent by the men, but never addresses her or her family). Zeineb
tells Hassan that his mother has died and that she is pregnant. The
close-ups of the women’s faces set them apart from the usual mass of
the village’s feminine collective, allowing each woman to claim her
individuality, something she has never dared to do before. Embold-
ened by her refusal to be engulfed in the collective, feminine passivity
of the village, Halima breaks with the norms of her stifling existence.
She procures birth control pills, which she never uses but hides under
blankets “just in case.” The pills represent the modernity and freedom
she so desires but cannot have and the sexual frustration she experi-
ences due to the absence of her husband.
After her severe beating for having simply spoken with Amziane,
Halima decides to demand a divorce, leave the village, and go back
to her family. This decision means having to give up her children,
leaving them behind to wait on a father who will never come back.
When Zeineb tells her that “she will never be granted a divorce by
[her] husband’s family,” Halima responds, “The essential thing is to
ask.” After her friend leaves, Zeineb goes to Taourit to have her photo
taken to put into a letter to her husband in order to tell him that his
mother has died and that she has had to “put to sleep” their child.
When she receives Hassan’s response (read by Amziane, who is
one of the few literate men in the village), she feels deceived. Hassan’s
reply is cold and unforgiving: “Zeineb, wake up the child and never
go to Taourit again without my permission.” Realizing that she can
expect nothing from a husband who has become someone she does
not know, the young woman tears up the talisman and throws it into
the river, washing away her child, her hopes, and her dreams. This
rupture with the myth of the sleeping child permits her to assert her
independence over her body and her destiny. In the end, it is through
the absence of patriarchy, and the women’s challenge of the validity of
mythical belief and its power over them, that Halima and Zeineb claim
their individuality and personhood. Halima defies social norms, leaves
 144 / Women’s Voices

her husband’s family, and returns to her native village. Zeineb refuses
the pregnancy, which would link her biologically to her husband, his
family, and his tribe.
In an interview, Kassari notes that illegal immigration, poverty,
and illiteracy are not just Morocco’s problems, they are indicative of
those of “three-quarters of the planet! The entire world wants to go
North. . . . It’s as Nietzsche said, ‘One is able to philosophize when ev-
erything is going well.’ But when one spends all his time looking for
his bread, one does not philosophize at all! One doesn’t have the time
to develop relationships with other men and women.” She further em-
phasizes that men and women in Morocco have become victims of
economics. Modernity is perhaps prosperous if everyone has equal
access to it. This, however, is still not the reality in Morocco.12

Deux Femmes sur la Route (2007), Farida Bourquia:

A Moroccan Thelma and Louise

Farida Bourquia, sixty-one, is one of the first Moroccan women to

make filmmaking a career both on the screen and in television. After
studying in Moscow at the National Theatre (1968–73), Bourquia re-
turned to Morocco and taught dramatic arts at the national conserva-
tory in Casablanca. She has spent the major part of her career working
for RTM (radio-télévision marocaine), creating programs for chil-
dren and sociocultural documentaries. Her made-for-television films
include Le dernier aveu (The last promise), La bague (The ring), Je ne
reviendrai pas (I will not come back), Le visage et le miroir (The face and
the mirror), La boîte magique (The magic box), and La maison deman-
dée (The popular house). In 1975, in honor of the International Year
of Women, she made several documentaries about Moroccan women
specifically for the events surrounding this occasion.13 These were the
first documentaries solely produced and directed by a woman. Her
feature-length films are Al jamra (Pebbles, 1982) and the recent Tariq
al Aylat (Deux femmes sur la route, Two women on the road, 2007).
Two Women on the Road in many ways is a Moroccan version of the
American classic female road movie, Thelma and Louise (1991, Ridley
Scott). Bourquia’s film surprisingly contains many of the same mes-
sages about women who love men too much who ultimately end up
betraying them. The film opens with Amina driving alone on a deso-
late road on the way to Tetouan in the northeastern part of Morocco.
 Documenting Morocco through Feminine Lenses / 145

Her car overheats and she is stranded on the barren highway’s shoul-
der. She is helped by a goatherd, who promises to go to a nearby vil-
lage to get her a new radiator. Once in the village, she discovers after
waiting hours for the new part in her broken-down car that the goat
herder absconded with her 300 dirhams and her radiator.
While waiting, smoking a cigarette, Amina is approached by mid-
dle-aged traditionally dressed Rahma, who declares that the young
woman owes her money for the blankets she has brought her from the
market. Amina tells her she has ordered no blankets and that Rahma
has mistaken her for someone else. Rahma will not budge and asks
her pryingly where she is going. Amina says to Tetouan but tells her
that her car has broken down and she is waiting on a part. The older
woman tells her to forget it, that “the men are dishonest around here;
you’ll never see your radiator or the money again.” She convinces
Amina to spend the night with her and wait until the next day to
confront the dishonest mechanics.
As she walks through the hot, dusty village, Amina, skimpily clad
in tight-fitting jeans, tank top with bared shoulders, sporting stiletto
heels, wearing lots of makeup and openly chain-smoking (something
women, up to a few years ago, never did in public in Morocco), is an
oddity. The young urban woman of the millennium generation, jux-
taposed to the traditional, middle-aged Rahma of the country, who
wears a headscarf and long dress, is a symbol for the schizophrenia
women confront every day as they are caught between the conven-
tional past and the uncertainties of the present.
Rahma is fat, dowdy, and walks clumsily behind the brazen Amina
as they traverse the village. Yet, one thing both women have in com-
mon is that both their husbands have deserted them. They recognize
that their differences are only in physical appearance. Rahma states
that her husband “went back to his village and left me for a younger
woman as soon as he retired.” Amina reveals that she is trying to find
money to pay off a judge to get her husband out of jail. Despite the
young woman’s emancipated ways and independence, she divulges
that she, too, has been betrayed by her husband, who told her after
their marriage that he “already had a wife.” When Rahma asks Amina
how she could marry a married man, she replies: “for money.” The
young woman later admits that her husband has been jailed for drug
trafficking in Tetouan.
Rahma also must go to Tetouan, a city to which she has never been.
She, like many mothers before her, is summoned to identify the body
 146 / Women’s Voices

of her son, which washed up onshore after he embarked in a small

boat for Italy. She tearfully tells Amina that “these kids don’t know
how to do anything except throw themselves into the sea. They tear
up their papers. They don’t make it there, but they aren’t able to come
back.” Rahma’s life has been defined by the men who have left her; so
much so that she tells her young guest: “I decided that a woman must
look for her own bread in the street.” Both women realize that despite
age, backgrounds, and goals in life, they have more in common than
they originally thought.
Without a car, Amina agrees to accompany Rahma on the bus to
Tetouan. However, they must stop in Chefchaouen (a mountain vil-
lage high in the Rif mountains) where the younger woman’s mother
lives, a mother she hasn’t seen in years. She is hesitant to go see her,
telling Rahma, “I send her money on the condition that she will forget
me.” After convincing her that “family is family,” Rahma accompanies
Amina to her mother’s house. The mother is cold and unforgiving.
She, too, has been abandoned by her husband and cursed with two
sons, “one who is an atheist and the other a fundamentalist.” Like Kas-
sari, Bourquia reveals the omnipotent power families have over their
daughters’ lives. To stay would mean having to live under the rule of
her brothers and the domination of her mother, who loves her only for
the money she brings in. Bitter, Amina leaves, throwing all the money
she has at her mother. As she slams the door behind her, she screams
to Rahma, “I will have nothing to do with this family anymore.”
During their time on the bus, the women meet Abdeslaam, a taxi
driver from Chefchaouen who has been traveling for two days trying
to get over his wife’s attempt to kill him with poison and her affair
with his co–taxi driver and partner. He offers to take both women
to Tetouan because it would be better than going home and “facing
an empty house.” Fragile and dejected, Abdeslaam falls in love with
Amina, who refuses to have anything to do with him. “I don’t need
any problems in my life right now,” she tells him. Nevertheless, he in-
sists on staying in an adjacent hotel room while the women take care
of their business. Rahma goes to the morgue to see if her son’s body
is really there. It isn’t, much to both women’s relief. She then waits
with Amina outside the courthouse in order to pay off the corrupt
judge who has assured the young woman’s husband’s release. The
meeting, however, does not take place before Amina sees her husband
coming out of the courthouse with his first wife and children. She
realizes she has been duped by him. Yet, the pain of this realization is
 Documenting Morocco through Feminine Lenses / 147

lessened by the fact that she has found Rahma, whom she now calls
“Mother.”
Both women’s stories end bittersweetly. Although Amina is freed
of the life of crime she would have had to lead if she had stayed with
her dubious husband, and Rahma’s son is perhaps safe and sound in
Europe “somewhere,” the women’s ultimate destinies are unsure. As
they stand out over the cliffs of the sea, Amina asks Rahma what she
thinks of the ocean. The older woman replies: “It’s the first time I’ve
seen it. I like it, except it is monstrous because it eats our children.”
In the didactic dialogue between the women, Bourquia evokes the
larger, symbolic message that the sea steals Morocco’s youth. In the
brief scene concluding her film, the filmmaker condemns the folly of
those who choose illegal immigration and urges Moroccans to find
the means to stay home. Contrasting the universality of her message,
Bourquia symbolically uses the majestic cliffs on which the women
are standing to represent their newfound unfettered freedom.
Bourquia’s film exposes the everyday hurdles women face because
of the whims and broken promises of men. The overtly “chick flick”
quality of the filmmaker’s story casts men as inept and made fragile by
unemployment, alcohol, and poverty. They are effortlessly swayed by
prospects of easy money (either by leaving the country and going to
Europe or by drug trafficking) or religious dogma, as Amina’s mother
explains, stating that her fundamentalist son is “haunted like a pos-
sessed zombie.” They do not come to the defense of women and are, in
general, there only to take advantage of them. This fact is made most
evident when Rahma and Amina, while waiting on a train, are hassled
by two homeless men and later when the younger woman, alone and
drunk in the hotel’s bar, is almost kidnapped by a shady man who says
he wants to “show her photos of Tetouan during colonial times.” She
is rescued only when Rahma notices from the hotel balcony that the
young woman is about to be forced into a car. Even women who had
the potential to marry happily are left alone and abandoned. Sitting
in a café, Amina learns from a girlhood friend that just before her
marriage the groom was hit by a truck and killed. “I could have been
married in Switzerland, but he wanted to have a Moroccan wedding.
We were going to live next to a lake in Switzerland. . . . I should have
married a Swiss guy.”
In general, Bourquia offers audiences a pessimistic depiction of con-
temporary women’s lives, no matter their class, education, or social
standing. Whether they are rural or urban, educated or illiterate, rich
Fig. 5.4. Poster for the film Number One (2008) by Zakia Tahiri
 Documenting Morocco through Feminine Lenses / 149

or poor, women all face a particular kind of feminine misery that can
be caused only by men. However, the film also instructs audiences that
in contemporary Morocco women can also persevere and survive on
their own. Amina and Rahma drive away along a coastline that is as
foreboding as it is beautiful. Unlike Thelma and Louise, they do not
choose to drive over the cliffs, but to tackle the obstacles before them.

Number One (2008), Zakia Tahiri:

A Comic Family Code?

The comedy Number One by Zakia Tahiri takes to task the reticence of
Moroccan men to embrace the new prescriptions of King Mohammed
VI’s Moudawana (Family Code) of 2004. The Moudawana reforms of
2004 brought women out of the dark ages as far as granting them
rights to divorce and increased access to the judicial system in Mo-
rocco. There have been several Moudawanas in the past,14 but the
2004 legislation has gone the farthest in granting rights to women
under Sharia law. Specifically it raised the marriage age to eighteen
(for both men and women), granted women the right to contract
their own marriages (no father, brother, or other male family member
need be involved), granted equal authority in the family to men and
women, approved greater financial rights (women have new rights to
assets acquired by marriage) in cases of divorce or a husband’s death,
established judicial divorce (men must go to court), and stipulated
that a husband’s verbal repudiation is no longer valid (both husband
and wife must seek divorce through the courts).
Disappointing to Moroccan feminists, polygamy was not abol-
ished. However, with the reform, polygamy now requires a judge’s
authorization and the consent of the husband’s first wife in court
before he is allowed to take a second. Women can specify in their
marriage contracts that polygamy is not an option for their future
husbands. And, in general, divorce is now a prerogative that can be
exercised as much by the wife as by the husband. Although men and
women are now equally protected under the law, the 2004 reform did
not address inheritance law, which is still based on Sharia directives
(meaning that a woman can inherit only two-thirds of what a man
can). The persistence of the unequal inheritance stipulations in the
Sharia are still on the horizon for women’s rights advocates. Needless
to say, the 2004 reforms signify great gains for women in Moroccan
 150 / Women’s Voices

society. The enactment of the reforms makes Morocco today one of

the most women-friendly countries in the Arab world. Yet, as Tahiri’s
film suggests, changing laws is one thing; transforming behavior is
another. Although humorous, the film acidly points out that the Mo-
roccan male mind-set will not change overnight. It will take a genera-
tion to eradicate machismo and sexism in a country still ruled by men
and functioning within the patriarchal paradigms of an overbearing
monarchy that dictates the norms of society.
Zakia Tahiri is a filmmaker and also a well-known actress whose
first major roles were in Fort Saganne (1983) with Gérard Depardieu
and Cathérine Deneuve, and the later Moroccan films Badis (1989)
and A la recherche du mari de ma femme (Looking for my wife’s husband,
1993), both by Abderrahmane Tazi. Tahiri’s roles have also included
playing the heroine in the critically acclaimed Une porte sur le ciel (A
door to the sky, 1987), by Farida Benlyazid. She has lived and worked
in France with periodic stints in Morocco.
Zakia Tahiri’s first feature-length film, Number One, was shot in di-
alectical Arabic and is based on her experiences as a woman who lives
between two cultures, caught between the feminism of France and
the traditionalism of her homeland. In an interview, Tahiri remarks,
“I profoundly, viscerally, effectively, aesthetically love Morocco, but
how do you talk about a country with love and lucidity? It was in
Casablanca, this dense, churning megalopolis, living in a mixture of
dialectical Arabic and French, that I wanted deliciously to lose myself.
So, I designed Aziz, my Number One, whom I looked for, discovered,
tamed. I hated him and pardoned him. He scared me, made me laugh
and cry” (Chabâa, n.p.).15
Number One, set in 2004 in the wake of the Moudawana reform, is
the story of Aziz (played by Aziz Saâdallah), who is the director of a
clothing manufacturing plant called Maroc Star. It is a company that
is constantly battling the encroaching Chinese who undercut Moroc-
can prices with cheap imports. Aziz is macho, overbearing and brut-
ish, condescending to his female employees, and disrespectful to his
cowed wife, Soraya (Nezha Rahil). His one ambition in life is to become
“Number One” at the factory, which his boss, Mr. Laraki (Abderrahim
Bargache), tells him will happen if he lands the French contract held
by Mademoiselle Morel (Chantal Ladesou).
One day, influenced by the “air du temps” of women’s emancipa-
tion broadcast on TV by newswomen touting the positive aspects of
the new Moudawana, Soraya decides that Aziz needs to change. In
 Documenting Morocco through Feminine Lenses / 151

an effort to stop his browbeating, she seeks help from the local witch,
Chama, who gives her a potion to mix into Aziz’s soup. The next
morning he wakes up an altered man, unable to insult or treat any
woman disrespectfully. His new Prince Charming personality pleases
his workers and his wife alike. Soraya’s good fortune becomes the
envy of all her female neighbors, much to the chagrin of their hus-
bands. Aziz remarks, “I’ve become a new man, freer and closer to my
wife. I see her differently. The psychiatrist calls it ‘the Moudawana
syndrome.’ ”
Despite his newfound respect for women, Aziz’s life at work
becomes a hell as he struggles to win the contract from the “ball-
crushing” feminist Mademoiselle Morel, who threatens to take her
order for eighty thousand pairs of jeans to the Chinese unless Aziz can
produce a quality product. Viewed by his CEO, Mr. Laraki, as having
gone soft on pushing his women employees to finish the job, Aziz is
fired. The employees, who now adore him, go on strike, threatening
Laraki with the loss of Morel’s contract and closure if he doesn’t hire
Aziz back. Aziz views his firing as caused by his newfound feminism,
so he, too, seeks out a healer to rectify the charm. Much to his cha-
grin, the medicine man, living in a local slum, tells Aziz that his wife’s
hex is too strong, and he cannot change it. “Women today are hor-
rible,” he quips.
Soraya, although recognizing how much her life has improved due
to the new “douceur” of her husband’s behavior, also realizes that she
changed him by false means. She returns to Chama for an antidote,
again mixes it in Aziz’s soup, confesses the entire story to him, and
then waits for his decision. Left alone in front of his meal, he pretends
to eat the antidote to make her happy, but ends up throwing it in the
garbage. It is difficult to determine the moral of the filmmaker’s story
or her affirmation, as she claims, that men can be changed by women.
In the end, all seems to be restored: Aziz gets his job back, Soraya
ends up with a model husband who helps out around the house, Ma-
demoiselle Morel gets her eighty thousand pairs of jeans, the women
employees find new joy in their backbreaking, sixteen-hour-a-day
labor over sewing machines, and Mr. Laraki also seems to embrace
some newly found appreciation for women and babies.
From the beginning, Tahiri notes that the Moudawana, although
decreed as law, still is a document that “has remained insufficiently
explained to some, not understood by others, and badly interpreted
by many who propagate conflicting ideas about it.” The humor and
 152 / Theories and Polemics

frivolity portrayed gloss over the true transformative stakes for

women as prescribed in the Moudawana. The fact that Tahiri is an
“outsider” to her country and not really concerned with the sociocul-
tural debates that have taken place since the reform is evident in the
flippancy of her male characters. Their vapid remarks such as “We are
dead with this new Moudawana,” and the sentiment, as evoked by one
of Aziz’s friends, that there’s a lot more choice “with all these new di-
vorcees, so I’m happy,” make too light issues of inequality that persist
in Moroccan society despite the reforms. In a country where women
are still hindered by illiteracy and traditionalism, there is little place
for hilarity.
Women are disproportionately hampered by poverty and lack of
access to education and means of advancement without male tutelage.
Some feminist activists have noted that it will take a generation to
implement the changes as prescribed in the Moudawana; transforma-
tions that must affect equitably both urban and rural women, extend-
ing across classes and social strata. The film places the responsibility
of change on men who will, in fact, never change, as captured in Aziz’s
weak statement: “I think I should change the country.” Tahiri’s mes-
sage, relying on “should” instead of “will,” continues the sustained
belief that women are obligated to wait on men, relying on the will of
the masculine to transform the status quo.
This is not a feminist, socially transformative film. The filmmaker
never insists that women must find the strength to stand up for them-
selves. Instead, Tahiri tells them that the only way they can hope to
combat the prowess of men is by using potions and magic. In the end,
it is Aziz who is voted “Number One,” not only by his workers at the
factory, but also by a leading women’s magazine whose editors put
him on the cover of its “Man of the Year” issue. Soraya, emancipated
only insofar as her husband is now more attentive, continues to slave
away as a housewife with no skills, condemned to a life of cleaning
and cooking. Once again, men are advanced to “number one,” while
women are left behind preparing their dinners.

*****

The majority of films made in the last decade by Moroccan women

ring true to the tenets of social-realist filmmaking. They instruct
audiences by focusing on once taboo and controversial topics, from
rural poverty and prostitution to divorce and repudiation. Womanist
 Documenting Morocco through Feminine Lenses / 153

films delve into the arduous choices that both traditional and modern
Moroccan women must make every day and how the consequences of
those choices dictate their futures. Additionally, Moroccan women’s
filmmaking documents the changing customs, traditions, politics, and
economic influences impacting women’s lives in the new millennium.
They promote new conceptions of female subjecthood that are both
particular and universal, indicative of changes in Morocco, on the
continent of Africa, and in the larger global context. Yet, these film-
makers’ works still leave open-ended questions for their protagonists.
Their cinematic narratives speak for all Moroccan women who, at
the dawn of the new millennium, find themselves at the crossroads of
modernity and tradition.
 Conclusion

The Future of Moroccan Cinema?

“The future of Moroccan cinema” is a statement with an inherent ques-

tion that arises any time one discusses the film industry in the country.
On the one hand, the industry does have a future; however, on the other,
many filmmakers and people in the business wonder what that future
will be. In a special 2008 issue dedicated to celebrating the fiftieth an-
niversary of Moroccan filmmaking, CinéMag Maroc, the country’s lead-
ing film magazine, notes that as they celebrate the “golden jubilee” of
Moroccan filmmaking, filmmakers must also acknowledge that the film
industry has been marked by “a long trajectory of trial and error, re-
search, and long desert crossings.” Equally noteworthy, the magazine
emphasizes, is the fact that cinema production in Morocco has finally
come into its maturity; one that has permitted the inception of “tools
and strategies that allow for a national cinematographic production
that is increasingly visible,” recognized and appreciated throughout the
world (90).
Moroccan filmmakers working at home and abroad have made
significant contributions to international cinema in the last fifty
years. In the same celebratory issue, Noureddine Sail, head of the
CCM, explains the rich history of Moroccan filmmaking as due in
part to “a cinema that has dedicated itself to prolonging inherited
imagery from the literary and pictorial orientalist tradition of the
nineteenth century.” He emphasizes that “Moroccan cinema is sus-
 The Future of Moroccan Cinema? / 155

tained by a look and an esthetic of otherness where the other and

his space are perceived through perceptive codes construed by the
West” (90).
It is the imagery of the exotic colonial past, blended with France’s
conception of cinema as the Seventh Art, and Morocco’s own multi-
ethnic and multilinguistic identity that have made Moroccan cinema
the multicultural cinema it is today. The increased presence of Mo-
roccan films at international film festivals attests to the industry’s
sustainability and commitment to cinema as both an art form and a
medium through which filmmakers are able to formulate meaning-
ful social commentaries. Cineastes should be commended for seek-
ing to develop and impart their own concept of cinema with regard
to themes, the images portrayed, and the messages conveyed. In the
years to come, the industry as a whole will continue to confront is-
sues of language, shifting audiences’ tastes, lagging viewership, and
resources, all of which impact how a film is made.
It must be noted that the rigor and sustainability of Morocco’s
film industry over the last fifty years are due primarily to filmmakers’
dedication to finding middle ground as they negotiate these hurdles.
Since 1999, they have continued to adhere to the importance of film as
a vehicle through which to send sociorealist messages that will chal-
lenge audiences to invest in positive transitions taking place currently
in the country. Whether male or female, MRE or based at home, cin-
eastes view their roles as keepers of the consciousness of Morocco’s
collective society. They are both generators and agents of change.

CCM: Mediating or Marketing?

Despite the progress made in the industry, certainly since the end
of the Lead Years, the CCM will need to play a more aggressive role
in the future in order to find solutions to funding and distribution.
These two issues continue to be major obstacles to promoting Moroc-
can films, both internationally and at home. In an interview in 2008,
Abdelhatif Laassadi, spokesman for the CCM, offered a reason for its
inefficaciousness on these two fronts. Primarily, Laassadi notes, the
CCM has functioned only as a “mediator” between filmmakers and
the realization of their projects. “Notre rôle est intermédiare” (Our
role is intermediary) has been the CCM’s modus operandi, certainly
 156 / Conclusion

for the last two decades. This is perhaps one of the leading problems
with actualizing the modernization of the industry. Instead of view-
ing its role as a “soutien créatif ” (creative support), as Laassadi sug-
gests, the CCM would better serve the future of film and filmmakers
in Morocco as a body that takes the lead in founding ways to market
and distribute films both at home and abroad (Sedia 2008, n.p.). It is
evident that the CCM needs to explore how better to mass-market
Moroccan films on DVD in Morocco and internationally. The few
grainy, low-quality, illegally copied DVDs sold for 10 dirhams (about
US$1.12) in the medinas of the country, or pirated onto websites, will
not ensure the future well-being of the industry, as notes Alexandra
Girard, reporting for the Moroccan newspaper Le matin. In an article
titled “Bilan mitigé pour le cinéma marocain en 2008” (Mixed out-
comes for Moroccan cinema in 2008), Girard remarks:
This cinema is rich and appreciated as much by Moroccans at
home as by foreign audiences, thus prompt export is needed.
Nevertheless, in order to counter the persistent illegal local
film market nourished by pirated DVDs, found today on every
street corner, audiences must be encouraged to go to the
movies. Because, in the end, if no one pays the real price for
viewing these films, death to [the] art is assured. If the CCM
only concentrates on channeling crowds for a few hours, then
nothing will be left of the 7th Art, important and necessary
for all self-respecting societies. (Girard 2008, n.p.)
The CCM has the capacity to distribute films in DVD format both
at home and abroad. Therefore, it would behoove the center to take
charge of an industry that has enormous potential but no distribution
network established between the CCM as a marketing institution,
filmmakers, and the consumer. Even foreign-language subtitling,
once thought to be a barrier, really isn’t. Notably, for a few hundred
dirhams per film, as filmmaker Hassan Benjelloun suggested in an in-
terview, the CCM could easily subtitle films for international festivals
abroad, taking the burden off the filmmaker.1 At present, subtitling
is the responsibility of the cineaste, who also must find international
festivals in which to screen his or her film. Thus, the challenge will be
how to exploit the global networks that are already available for DVD
distribution and film festival attendance. Marketing films on Moroc-
cans’ own terms, without European or American intervention (or reli-
ance on foreign distribution companies in general), will be crucial in
 The Future of Moroccan Cinema? / 157

gaining further international recognition, ensuring sustainability, and

professionalizing the role of the CCM.

Cinemas and Ticket Sales

The CCM also should play a more active role in assuring viable movie
theaters (“salles”) for screening Moroccan films. In an article titled
“Bilan cinématographique 2009: Des chiffres qui mettent à nu l’état
du 7ème Art marocain” (Cinema outcomes for 2009: Numbers that lay
bare the state of Morocco’s 7th Art), Ouafaâ Bennani, writing for Le
matin, notes the mixed results of a cinema caught between trying to
modernize itself and the vestiges of the past, overburdened by archaic
methods of organization (2010, n.p.). Reporting on a conference held
in March 2009 by the CCM at the National Library in Rabat (which
gathered CCM employees, filmmakers, producers, and film critics as
well as a general audience of cinema aficionados), Bennani notes that
the most pressing questions discussed focused on lack of movie the-
aters and the weak ticket sales of Moroccan films at home.
Film critic Moulay Driss Jaidi pointed out that until the number of
cinemas in Morocco increases, it will be difficult to encourage cinema-
goers to attend the screenings of Moroccan films. He referred to the
“catastrophic decrease of theatres between 2008 and 2009,” noting a
decrease from 149 to about 40. The dearth of theaters has significantly
hindered the development of Moroccan film. Jaidi also pointed out
that, if “we rely on the statistics reported by the CCM, [our informa-
tion is mixed] because it counts screens rather than ‘salles’ (theaters),
so instead of forty cinemas, there are seventy screens” (Bennani 2010,
n.p.). Thus, the CCM hypes large multiplexes as successes because
they are counted as multiple screens, not single theaters, whereas
small village movie houses with single screens are the norm in most
regions of Morocco.
Parallel to the decline in the number of movie houses, Jaidi pointed
out that ticket sales have fallen, noting that only 2,638,707 tickets for
films were sold in 2009. This number marks a significant decrease
from the 11,614,845 sold in 2000. The issue of ticket sales is directly
linked to the decline in the number of theaters. Jaidi emphasized that
the numbers for both are also unequally distributed across Morocco
as 50 percent of all theaters are found in Casablanca. Others are
spread out in large cities such as Rabat and Fez (which usually have
 158 / Conclusion

three to five per city) and small towns that, on average, boast only
one to three theaters. Jaidi equally brought up the question of the
150 screens that the CCM had promised to build in this decade: “Je
ne sais pas comment et quand ce projet connaîtra le jour et par quels
moyens, alors que nous assistons continuellement à des fermetures de
salles . . . puis, quel est ce public qui va remplir ces salles ?” (I don’t
know how this project will see the light of day, since we constantly see
cinemas which are closing . . . and, what will be the public that will fill
these cinemas?). Jaidi’s negative numbers, however, were countered
by some positive news at the conference, which did announce new the-
ater openings in Salé and Agdal (suburbs of Rabat), Tangier, Martil,
Khouribga, and Ouarzazate (Bennani 2010, n.p.).

Teaching, Training, and Schools

Moroccan cinema is continuing in an evolutionary process that is

hopeful. For example, the number of films produced per year has
increased. According to the CCM, 2009 was a bumper-crop year
for number of films produced (fifteen feature-length films and four
shorts). Critic Mourad Lefhel noted at the conference in March 2009
that television stations, notably 2M, have invested heavily in the pro-
motion of Moroccan cinema by regularly airing feature-length films
(Bennani 2010, n.p.).
A significant hindrance to filmmaking in Morocco has been in the
technical domain. The shortage of trained Moroccan technicians,
cameramen, and sound people, as well as professional scriptwriters in
the field who live and work exclusively in Morocco has significantly
impacted the cost of film production in the country. This fact was
repeatedly expressed to me in the interviews I conducted with film-
makers and producers as I toured the country.2 For example, of the
fifteen films produced in 2009, fourteen were written by the directors
themselves without the aid of professional scriptwriters. While some
directors have proved to be gifted screenwriters, most lack the profes-
sional eye or know-how to bring to fruition a solid script. Many film
critics blame badly written scripts as part of the problem with the
overall quality of Moroccan films (i.e., their lack of appeal to main-
stream markets abroad) (Bennani 2010, n.p).
Furthermore, the aura of Europe as the pinnacle of perfection is
still significant in the mind-set of most filmmakers. Khalid Damoun,
 The Future of Moroccan Cinema? / 159

head of the Association of Film Critics in Morocco, notes that the

majority of directors and producers do not have confidence in Moroc-
can technicians, preferring to rely on foreign film editors and photo
technicians. In their view, lack of professionals contributes to unpro-
fessional films, notes Damoun (Bennani 2010, n.p.). However, some
signs that this purview is changing do exist. In 2006, ESAV (Ecole
supérieure des arts visuels de Marrakech, Advanced Education in the
Visual Arts, Marrakech) was opened and touted as the first school
of advanced study in cinema south of the Mediterranean. The ESAV
has been hailed and supported internationally by huge names in cin-
ema such as Martin Scorsese, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, and Abderrahmane
Sissako. The school also holds partnerships with four European film
schools. At present, there are 160 full-time students, ranging from
seventeen to thirty years of age. The majority are Moroccan, yet the
school has become international as it enrolls increasing numbers of
students from all over Africa and even Europe.
Like most Moroccan schools, the model is French, so in order to
be admitted students must first pass an exam at the level of the bac-
calaureate and then study for three to five years depending on the
program. Almost all instruction is in French. ESAV remains an elit-
ist institution since it is private and costs the equivalent of 3,000 to
4,500 euros per year, a small fortune for most Moroccans who earn
less than 180 euros a month.3 A similar school was founded in 2002
in Rabat. The ISCA (Institut, spécialisé du cinéma de l’audiovisuel) is
also private, functions in French, and focuses on training students in
the technical aspects of primarily television and audiovisual journal-
ism. It has been lauded for its foresight in seeing the need to train
young Moroccans in technical fields and for its pedagogy, which is
multidisciplinary.
During the conference on the status of the industry in 2009, almost
all attendees agreed that the future of Moroccan cinema would be
in the hands of young people who see film as a way to discuss social
taboos in society, explore new technical innovation, and, in general,
advance the sociocultural and political dialogues of the country into
the twenty-first century. Film criticism, as both a genre and a ve-
hicle through which to contextualize meaningful commentary on so-
ciety in Morocco, will also need to be sustained in order to ensure the
future vitality of the industry. Attendees at the conference noted that
additional platforms for discussing and forming thoughtful film criti-
cism are needed.
 160 / Conclusion

Although younger film aficionados have founded blogs (as men-

tioned in the introduction), it remains to be seen if venues for devel-
oping and supporting future film discourse among the general public
will increase. Certainly the proliferation of blogs and activity on the
Internet have shifted how the dissemination of traditional film is dif-
fused in newspapers and magazines, as notes Damoun: “Les critiques
de cinéma n’ont plus de place dans les journaux ni dans les émissions
de télévision et radio. Alors que la direction du CCM nous reproche
de ne plus faire notre travail” (Cinema critics no longer have space in
newspapers or on television and radio shows. At the same time the
heads of the CCM criticize us for no longer doing our job) (Bennani
2010, n.p).
If modes of discourse must, and in some instances have, changed,
then it is up to the old guard to do the same. Although confronted with
hurdles such as flagging ticket sales and cinema closures, the “Report
of 2009” notes that the CCM authorized filming for 29 feature-length
films, 28 telefilms, 80 shorts, 7 medium-length films, 16 series, 59
documentaries, 4 sitcoms, and 44 institutional films (films made for
specific corporations) (Bennani 2010, n.p.). In 2009, 2,638,707 Moroc-
cans went to see films in theaters! Perhaps this attests to the fact that
as film language becomes more accessible, the masses become more
used to the idea of film as an integral part of everyday society and cul-
ture. The fine line that must be walked, according to most filmmak-
ers, is how to make their films entertaining enough to draw crowds,
but still true to “les sujets dans la réalité” (subjects in the reality) of
everyday Morocco (Girard 2008, n.p.).

Film Language and Communication

In and Outside Morocco

Film critic Mustapha Mesnaoui emphasizes that film can indeed play
a role in “bridging gaps” as a “langue de communication” (language of
communication) in contemporary society. The “7th Art,” he declares,
has the potential to unite modernists and traditionalists by offering
them a cinema that is inclusive of all views and debates, encouraging
them to reflect on the reality of multicultural Morocco (Ziane 2005,
n.p). Film is a medium through which contemporary issues, which
might not otherwise be available to large audiences who lack access
to literature, can be vetted and discussed. Festivals in Tangier, Fez,
 The Future of Moroccan Cinema? / 161

Rabat, and Casablanca have provided mediating spaces in which com-

munication is founded, not only between filmmakers and their audi-
ences, but also among classes, genders, and ethnicities. The language
of Moroccan film is all-inclusive, carving out a multifaceted milieu
that is at once Berber/Arab/French, rural and urban, traditional and
modern.
Today, Moroccan cinema acts as a mirror for a society that is re-
making itself. Like literature, the press, and other forms of media that
are invested socioculturally and politically in the dynamics and de-
bates currently taking place in the country, cinema is a key element
in the documentation of past history and present realities. It provides
a forum through which to analyze, reflect, and discuss the contem-
porary issues that are present in society and that contribute to the
shaping of the contours of the New Morocco.
 Notes

Preface

1. “Nous ne voulons pas faire du cinéma subversif . . . il s’agit avant

tout de faire du cinéma un moyen adéquate de dénonciation, et non une
arme à la quête d’une subversion folle et insoutenable” (my translation).
2. However, one cannot be blindly optimistic about transparency, cer-
tainly in the press. As recently as September 2009, journalists writing for
several newspapers and newsmagazines, such as TelQuel and the arabo-
phone journal Akhbar al youm (published by the company Media 21 and
owned by Baoufik Bouachrine, who is also the editor), were incarcerated
and issues of both publications were seized by the police. Akhbar al youm
has been shut down indefinitely. According to the Minister of the Inte-
rior, the newsmagazine is guilty of publishing a cartoon of Prince Moulay
Ismaïl next to a partial six-pointed star instead of the five denoted on
the Moroccan flag. The Ministry of the Interior stopped short of anti-
Semitic language, but did fault the cartoonist, Khalid Gueddar, for “defac-
ing the national flag of the Kingdom of Morocco.”
A communiqué from the Ministry of the Interior affirmed that
“l’utilisation de l’étoile de David dans la caricature suscite par ailleurs
des interrogations sur les insinuations de ses auteurs” (use of the Star of
David in a cartoon brings to light the authors’ insinuations); (reported on
TelQuel’s website: http://www.telquel-online.com/392/edito_392.shtml.
See also http://entrenousmarocains.blogspot.com/2009/09/lactualite-
du-jour-le-prince-moulay_29.html.
 164 / Notes to Pages xv–4

In July 2009, during the celebrations marking the tenth anniversary of

Mohammed VI’s reign, journalists were hoping for a brighter, more trans-
parent future in the saga of the free press in Morocco. However, this was
not to be the case. Further disappointments and setbacks occurred. The
Committee to Protect Journalists, an international organization designed
to protect the integrity of the free press, reported that “on August 1, 2009,
authorities destroyed more than 100,000 copies of Nichane (permanently
shut down in 2010), an Arabic-language weekly, and TelQuel, its French-
language sister, both of which carried a public opinion poll in which 91 per-
cent of respondents said they viewed the king favorably. Three days later,
the government banned an issue of the French daily Le Monde that also
carried the poll results.” The site stresses that royal authorities condemned
the entire survey process: “Conducting a survey, the main focus of which
is to ask the citizens to give their thoughts on the king’s actions, is in itself
a violation of the principles and the foundation of the royal system.” The
minister of communication, Khalid Naciri, told reporters: “In Morocco, the
monarchy cannot be the object of a debate, even through a survey.” See
http://www.cpj.org/2010/02/attacks-on-the-press-2009-morocco.php.
3. Some of the blog websites dealing with Moroccan film currently
(as of June 2010) include: Blog Riad, http://riad-aguerzame.com/blog/
balade-dans-le-sud-marocain/; Blog Rachid Naim, http://naim.over-
blog.org/article-10119409.html; Bladi Net, http://www.bladi.net; Save
Cinemas in Morocco, http://www.savecinemasinmarocco.com (articles in
French and English); Le Blog Nadif (by Mohammed Nadif, actor and di-
rector), http://www.pointinfo.org/nadif/.
4. Valérie Ganne, “Tizi, le village des prostituées,” Afrik.com (May 22,
2003), http://www.afrik.com/article6113.html.

Introduction: Moroccan National Cinema

Epigraph: Hassan Benjelloun, in discussion with the author, May 29,

2009.
1. General Lyautey was a career colonial officer. He dedicated his life’s
mission to securing Morocco for French interests. His policy for contact
with indigenous people relied on a “divide and conquer” method of op-
eration, wherein tribesmen were kept at bay in order to maintain French
domination in the country.
2. We have only to think of the “dark” heroines of “foreign” origins:
Emma in Madame Bovary (Gustave Flaubert) and the eponymous heroine
of Thérèse Raquin (Emile Zola); the encounter with otherness in Alge-
ria, as depicted in Une année dans le Sahel (A Year in the Sahel, Eugène
 Notes to Pages 4–11 / 165

Fromentin), and Turkey and the Congo, as described in André Gide’s

La marche turque (The turkish march) and Voyage au Congo (Travels to
Congo).
3. Marabouts are traditional holy men and women who are respon-
sible for healing and providing talismans. The marabout continues to be
a popular figure in literature and does still exist in traditional villages
across Morocco and other regions in Africa.
4. See Frank Ukadike, Black African Cinema (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1994). This is also one of the reasons that in the former
British colonies the development of the video and television industries
is much more apparent than in francophone West Africa. The Nigerian
video market is rivaled by none other on the continent.
5. The first presentation of film in Egypt was made in January 1896
by Brunio (a Lumière photographer), who was there shooting film for the
Lumière brothers. A Lumière camera and film program were used. The
first film produced in Egypt in 1912 was Dans les rues d’Alexandrie (In the
streets of Alexandria, M. de Lagarne); the first feature film more than
one hour in length was Koubla Fil Sahara’a Ibrahim lama, made in 1927;
and the first “talkie” was Onchoudet el Fouad, made in 1932. See http://
www.learnaboutmovieposters.com/newsite/INDEX/COUNTRIES/
Egypt/EgyptianHistory.asp.
6. In 1985 the prestigious IDHEC was restructured by then Minister
of Culture Jack Lang. FEMIS now includes seven departments for direc-
tion, screenwriting, picture, sound editing, production, and set design.
Courses in script and film distribution were also added in the 1992. In
2002, a European production training program was founded with an af-
filiate program in Germany. FEMIS is now a public institution adminis-
tered by the Ministry of Culture and Communication.
7. Ksikes emphasized this fact in a February 2007 symposium held by
journalists at the annual Salon de Livre in Casablanca.
8. Interview with Kamal Mouline, June 1, 2009, Centre cinémato-
graphic marocain, Rabat, Morocco.
9. According to Ghareeb, the films Love in Casablanca and Searching
for My Wife’s Husband sold more than 150,000 tickets each in Casablanca
alone.
10. In 2005, 150,000 people flocked to see Marock when it first opened
in theaters: “autant qu’en France” (as many as in France), attests a TelQuel
feature article on the filmmaker.
11. Funding is assured by a tax added to all electricity bills in Mo-
rocco. This tax, known as “la taxe audiovisuelle” (media tax) is levied to
fund primarily the CCM and 2M (the national television channel). Inter-
view with Kamal Mouline, June 1, 2009, Rabat, Morocco.
 166 / Notes to Pages 12–19

12. Interview with Kamal Mouline, CCM, June 1, 2009, Rabat, Morocco.
13. Rachid Chenchabi notes in an article from 1984 that Férid Boughedir,
notable Tunisian film critic and filmmaker, humorously characterized the
three Maghrebian national cinemas as follows: Algerians are known for
“la dignité de l’humilié” (the dignity of the humiliated) and always bend to
the power of their government; Tunisians fight for “l’exigence de la vé-
rité” (claiming truth) and rely on a liberty of expression unlike anywhere
else in the Arab world, so “they speak,” but succumb to the diversity of
their freedom and are, therefore, “Un orphelin qui cherche son visage”
(an orphan who seeks his face); and the Moroccans live in the perpetual
“plainte silencieuse . . . j’étouffe, j’étouffe” (silent complaint . . . I’m suffo-
cating, I’m suffocating). Rachid Chenchabi, “Le cinéma maghrébin, une
dimension francophone?” Franzosisch heute15, no. 2 (1984): 224–33.
14. On average, the CCM awards about US$400,000 per film. Film-
makers compete on an annual basis for these funds,which are distributed
through the “avances sur recette” (advance estimate of ticket sales) pro-
gram. Interview with Kamal Mouline, June 1, 2009, Rabat, Morocco.
15. I repeatedly asked him if there was “an agenda” in his use of lan-
guage (i.e., Does the use of French evoke a different meaning for audi-
ences than Arabic?). He said not really and that the French dialogues in
Tabite, and indeed all his films, are used to “fit the mood” or the place of
the action. Interview, February 2007.
16. The premiere was held at the Mohammed V Theater in downtown
Rabat to a packed audience on February 20, 2007. Although Lahlou is
considered “fou” (crazy) by everyone I talked to, his films, even the most
bizarre, still find audiences.
17. However, after spending some months in Tunisia, I would say that
this is now less the case. Arabization has been successful in transplanting
many of the French dailies and print media as well as diminishing French
language use in Tunisian cinema, although French films made in France
are still widely distributed in Tunisian theaters.

Chapter 1: Theories and Polemics

1. Algeria is known as the “People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria,”

although since 1962 it has been ruled by one party, the FLN, a single
military and political power in the country. The party holds “elections” to
elect presidents, who are usually cadres from the military. Tunisia touts a
republic presidential system that is parliamentary and includes a Cham-
ber of Representatives and a Chamber of Advisers. Zine El Abidine Ben
Ali declared himself “president for life” in 1987 after wrenching the office
 Notes to Pages 19–30 / 167

from Habib Bourguiba, whom Ben Ali and his medical experts deemed
was mentally unfit to function further in office.
2. Lynn Teo Simarski, “Through North African Eyes,” Saudi Aramco
World, last accessed February 5, 2009, http://www.saudiaramcoworld.
com/issue/ 199201/through.north.african.eyes.htm.
3. Even today, Ben Barka remains “the most notorious symbol of Mo-
rocco’s ongoing difficulties with kidnapping and disappearance” (Slyo-
movics 2005, 49). Ben Barka’s kidnapping in Paris and subsequent ex-
ecution in France (details of which are revealed in Ali Bourequat’s 1993
testimonial Dix-huit ans de solitude, Eighteen years of solitude) are not
new subjects in contemporary Moroccan discourse. However, the ghost
of Ben Barka still haunts the conscience of Moroccan society, and his
story remains a symbol of flagrant state-sanctioned torture and abuse.
Even though there is an avenue named after him in Rabat, and his role in
opposition party politics in the 1960s has been well documented (most
recently on the screen in the French-Moroccan film J’ai vu tuer Ben Barka
(I saw Ben Barka get killed, by Serge Le Péron and Saïd Smihi, 2005), Ben
Barka endures as the quintessential martyr of the abusive Lead Years.
The truth that has been uncovered thus far reveals that he was a vic-
tim, not only of his own government, but also of the complicity of an
international ring of cohorts and spies with associations ranging from
the French Interpol to the American CIA. The sheer power of the om-
nipotent Makhzen (the secretive side of the state, the monarchy, and the
elites who have held the real power of Morocco since the time of the sul-
tans) wielded against the opposition leader explains why so many people
were frightened into silence. In a presentation at Georgetown Univer-
sity (March 17, 2009), Ahmed Herzenni, head of the Conseil consecutive
des droits de l’homme (CCDH, Consultative Council on Human Rights),
noted that, while many dossiers filed for reparations due to human rights
abuse during the Lead Years were acknowledged and action on them has
been taken, Ben Barka’s would remain closed because “the affair impli-
cates parties other than Moroccan.” This means that until France owns
up to the role it played in the capture, torture, and assassination of the
opposition leader, the details of the “affair” will remain obscure.
4. It is important to note the distinction between Third Cinema and
Third World Cinema. “Third Cinema is an aesthetic and political project
which is guided by certain principles in order to challenge power struc-
tures.” However, Third Cinema films “are generally produced by film-
makers located within the Third World regions of Africa, Asia, and Latin
America and intended for audiences in these regions. . . . Third Cinema
can also include films made by filmmakers located in the so-called First
or Second Worlds, as long as they adhere to the guiding principles and
 168 / Notes to Pages 31–46

are made in support of the Third World perspective.” The Battle of Al-
giers by Italian Gillo Pontecorvo is a classic example of a Third World
perspective promoted in a film made by a First World filmmaker. See
http://thirdcinema.blueskylimit.com/thirdcinema.html.
5. See http://thirdcinema.blueskylimit.com/thirdcinema.html.
6. Third Cinema (in Spanish known as Tercer Cine) began in the 1960s.
Its goals included to challenge neocolonialism and capitalist systems as
well as the Hollywood model of filmmaking, which produced films for
pure entertainment. The manifesto Towards a Third Cinema, written in
the late 1960s by Argentine filmmakers Fernando Solanas and Octavio
Getino, members of the Grupo cine liberación, theoretically conceptual-
ized the genre. Other filmmaker-theorists, genres, and groups included
Raymundo Gleyzer and his Cine de la base, the Brazilian Cinema nôvo
and revolutionary cinema from Cuba.

Chapter 2: Issues, Contexts, and “Culture Wars”

1. This was repeatedly a subject of contention for Sembène Ousmane,

who stated that West African filmmakers were always held over a barrel
by France when they accepted funding.
2. There are of course exceptions. L’enfant endormi (The sleeping child,
2004), a Moroccan-Belgian coproduction taking place in northeastern
Morocco, is based on a traditional Moroccan story.
3. These statistics were sent by Kamal Mouline, general counsel of the
CCM, on May 26, 2010. Mr. Mouline also indicated that foreign cineastes
who made films in Morocco have invested a total of US$406 million into the
country’s filmmaking industry in the last six years (particularly in the re-
gion of Ouarzazate, known as the “Hollywood” of Morocco due to the large
soundstages that have been built in the town). The top-grossing films made
in Morocco by American filmmakers include Prince of Persia (Mike Newel,
2010); Green Zone (Paul Greengrass, 2010); Body of Lies (Ridley Scott, 2008);
Kingdom of Heaven (Ridley Scott, 2005); and Sahara (Breck Eisner, 2005).
4. Al Arabiya newschannel, http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2007/
12/13/42889.html, 13 December 2007.
5. Hicham Houdaïfa and Fedoua Tounassi, “Marock le vrai débat,” Le
journal hebdomadaire, May 27–June 2, 2006: 18–25, 18.
6. Ahmed Benchemsi, “Les 50 qui feront le Maroc de demain,” TelQuel: Le
Maroc tel qu’il est, December 2006: 38–55, 50.
7. A TelQuel article comments on the openness both on the set and
behind the scenes during the shooting of Marock. Despite the emotion-
ally, socially and even politically charged subject matter of the film, the
 Notes to Pages 46–69 / 169

shooting of Marock came off in harmony among the technical team. The
sincerity of the subject meant a lot to the team, as witnesses this techni-
cian: “It’s certain that the film could have proposed clashes among us.
All these question concerning religious, sexual, and linguistic rifts. But
everyone understood that the film wasn’t seeking to establish absolute
truths but to transcribe, above all, certain realities that are useless to
ignore. On the scene, Muslims, Jews, and Christians cohabited perfectly;
some didn’t hesitate to practice their religious rites during filming” (my
translation). “Marock. Le film de tous les tabous,” TelQuel, http://www.
telquel-online.com/223/couverture_223_1.shtml.
8. Amin Rboub, L’economiste, http://www.leconomiste.com/print_ar-
ticle.html?a=67765 Mohamed Hassan El Joundy, general secretary of the
Dramaturge Guild, was the most vocal critic.
9. Ibid.
10. Houdaïfa et al., 22.
11. Ibid., 66.
12. “Le Grand Voyage,” http://www.worldcinemashowcase.co.nz/
GRANDVOYAGE.html.
13. See http://worldcinemashowcase.co.nz/GRANDVOYAGE.html.
14. Ahsma Mouhib, http://asmaamb.over-blog.com/article-10381606.
html.
15. Youssouf Elalamy informed me in an e-mail sent on May 27, 2010:
“Nizar est un prénom arabe et Tayf peut être soit un nom de famille soit
Tayf comme le participe passé du verbe Taafa qui veut dire tourner en
procession autour de la Kaaba. Tayf voudrait donc dire ‘qui a effectué le
rituel de la procession autour de la Kaaba.’ Au sens figuré, Tayf peut éga-
lement signifier ‘qui a tourné,’ ‘que l’on a fait tourner en bourrique.’ ”
16. Olivier Barlet, “la Symphonie Marocaine,” review, http://www.
africultures.com/php/index.php?nav=article&no=4451.
17. See http://www.comlive.net/La-symphonie-marocaine,81521.htm.
18. The Makhzen is “le pouvoir occult” (parallel, hidden power of the
monarchy). It is a behemoth that has run the country through oppres-
sion, torture, and corruption since the time of the sultans. Members of
the Makhzen are the elite who possess all the power in Morocco.
19. Interview with Hassan Benjelloun at his studio, May 29, 2009,
Casablanca, Morocco.
20. See http://jewishrefugees.blogspot.com/2008/03/moroccan-film-
focuses-on-mass-jewish.html.
21. Ibid.
22. Interview with Hassan Benjelloun, May 29, 2009, Casablanca, Mo-
rocco.
23. Ibid.
 170 / Notes to Pages 71–101

Chapter 3: Bad Boys, Drugs, and Rock ’n’ Roll

1. Author’s italics.
2. As cited in Brinda Bose, “Modernity, Globality, Sexuality, and the
City: A Reading of Indian Cinema,” Global South, vol. 2:1: 35–58.
3. Citation from Lakhmari’s official website for the film linked to Fa-
cebook.
4. Translated roughly as: Tears of joy the day of Zamzam and teeth-
clenching depression on a battlefield cleaned with Clorox, or the legend
of Ash’s eleventh finger.
5. “Foi schizophrénique,” Le journal hebdomadaire, http://www.lejour-
nal-hebdo.com/article.php3?id_article=4909.
6. In the second novel, Yousouf the journalist runs for city office
on the platform of “no-corruption”; however, he loses. While on the
campaign trail and writing articles against Moroccan corruption for
his newspaper La missive, whose slogan is “L’information, sans complai-
sance, sans restriction” (Information without complicity or restriction),
he meets Yasmina, a doctor and social activist for poor children in the
slums of Casablanca (Lamrini 2000, 68). They fall in love and marry;
however, their happy marriage is overshadowed by the fact that Yas-
mina is a Talabi, and therefore from a family that represents the corrupt
elite—the very entity against which Youssef is writing and fighting
his cause. The final tome, Le temps des impunis, published in 2004, ends
on an uncertain note, thus accurately mirroring the socioeconomic and
cultural climate of contemporary Morocco. Youssef is sent to prison for
the damaging articles he has written. In prison, he undertakes a huger
strike to draw attention to the lack of freedom of press in Morocco.
7. The last few pages of the third novel, Le temps des impunis, which
are not included in the film, describe “un certain printemps en 2003” (a
certain spring in 2003) when three bombs went off in Casablanca. The
event is now considered Morocco’s September 11.
8. Interview with Rida Lamrini, May 30, 2009, Casablanca, Morocco.

Chapter 4: Prison, Torture, and Testimony

1. The CIA World Fact Book lists the following breakdown for the Mo-
roccan population: 0–14 years old, 32.1 percent; 15–64, 63 percent; 65
years and older, 5.1 percent. The median age: 24.3 years (24.8 years fe-
male; 23.8 male); total population as of 2007: 33,241,259, https://www.cia.
gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/mo.html#People.
 Notes to Pages 102–112 / 171

2. Titles of testimonial prison literature in Arabic include the nov-

els Ufoulu al-layl: Yawmiyat Lm’arif wa Ghbila (The extinction of night:
Journal of Lm’arif and Ghbila) by Tahar Mahfoudi (published by Dar
Al-Qarawiyine, 2004), which recounts the suffering of prisoners in two
detention centers in Casablanca; and Hadit al-‘atama by Fatna El Bouih
(A woman named Rachid, Le Fennec, 2001), which affirms the resistance
of women who were tortured in prisons. (See Zekri 2006, 205.)
3. These coups took place in Kénitra in 1971 and in the air when gen-
erals Oufkir and Dilimi, powerful in the king’s military apparatus, tried to
force the royal Boeing 747 down and take over the government in 1972.
Both coups failed and Hassan II assassinated the generals.
4. According to Mohammed Raïss, twenty-seven of these men are in
Morocco, the three Bourequat brothers are abroad (Ali resides in the
United States and Midhat and Bayazid live in France), and M’barek Touil
is in the United States. (See Raïss 2002, 389.) This number, however, var-
ies depending on the text and also when it was written, since many of the
former prisoners are elderly and dying.
5. Zinoun lost his oldest son, Chems, in an auto accident in November
2008.
6. At the time of my interview with Lahcen Zinoun, he had been wait-
ing for weeks on the Ministry of Culture to summon him to its offices
to see if his proposal for several endeavors in the arts would be accepted
and funded. He underscored the fact that for every two steps forward
an artist takes, he must take three backward. Interview, June 11, 2009,
Casablanca, Morocco.
7. Susan Slyomovics, in The Performance of Human Rights in Morocco
(Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press, 2005), explains that dur-
ing the years 1963–73 more than thirteen thousand people went missing.
This is an official estimate, but some feel the number is much higher. The
tally also does not account for the years from 1973 forward, during which
many disappeared of whom families are still awaiting information.
8. The film is a Franco-Marocain-Spanish production.
9. Staff writer, TelQuel, http://www.telquel-online.com/194/sujet5.
shtml.
10. Staff writer, Le monde, http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1–0
@2–3476–705421,0.html.
11. See the interview with Bachir Ben Barka dated November 1999,
http://www.marxist.com/appeals/ben_barka/pictures.html.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.
14. Staff writer, TelQuel, http://www.telquel-online.com/194/sujet5.
shtml.
 172 / Notes to Pages 112–127

15. “Cinéma: Entretien avec Jilali Ferhati, réalisateur de Mémoire en

détention,” TelQuel, December 4, 2005, http://www.yabiladi.com/article.
php?cat=culture&id=221.
16. TelQuel, no. 203, http://www.telquel-online.com.
17. These testimonial novels include Ahmed Marzouki’s Cellule 10:
Tazmamart (2001); Abdelfettah Fakihani’s Le couloir: Bribes de vérité sur
les années de plomb (2005); Mohammed Raïss’s De Skhirat à Tazmamart:
Retour du bout de l’enfer (2002); Fatna El Bouih’s Une femme nommée Rachid
(2002); and Aziz Binebine’s Tazmamart (2008). For complete analyses of
these testimonials, see Valérie Orlando’s Francophone Voices of the “New
Morocco” in Film and Print: (Re)presenting a Society in Transition (Palgrave
Macmillan, 2009).
18. Anonymous author, http://www.telquel-online.com/124/arts_124
.shtml.
19. Some have said that supporters marching in the Green March
were paid by the monarchy for their support. I cannot, however, verify
this information.
20. The Makhzen is the “system” in Morocco, run by the rich and
powerful directly associated with the monarchy. It has been in place since
the time of the sultans, before French colonial rule.
21. In particular see her works Les femmes arabes (Casablanca: Editions
Aïni Bennaï, 2002) ; La liaison (Casablanca: Editions Aïni Bennaï, 2002,
first published under the pseudonym Lyne Tywa, Paris: L’Harmattan,
1989) ; and Le Maghreb des femmes: Les défis du XXIème siècle (Rabat: Mar-
sam, 2001).

Chapter 5: Women’s Voices

1. Days of Fear: A Booklet about the Making of Bab el Oued City, 1997.
Interview with Allouache included with the DVD.
2. See http://www.tiburonfilmfestival.com/eventInfo.php?event_
id=144.
3. Samira Hadj Djilani is a producer and former director of the first pri-
vate Algerian TV channel, “Khalifa TV” (which no longer exists). She has
also worked for several years at the Ministry of Culture and Communica-
tion. She is a member of the “Algerian Businesswomen’s Club” and also
works and teaches in Spain. Currently she is working on a film about an
Algerian martyr of the revolution, Aissat Idir. Baya Hachemi is a special-
ist in TV serial stories. Nadia Cherabi is also a filmmaker and a producer.
She is a teacher at the Audiovisual School in Algiers. Cherabi, Hachemi,
and Yamina Chouikh (Rachida, 2002) are members of the Women Film-
 Notes to Pages 127–149 / 173

makers and Producers, an association that supports women making films

in Algeria. (Special thanks to Margaret Braswell for this information via
e-mail, September 30, 2009.)
4. The Kahina was also known to be a priestess and is thought to have
reigned in Berber lands (primarily the Aurès Mountains in Algeria), in
the region of Dihiya, during the seventh and eighth centuries AD. Some
have also been called by the names Dihiya and Dîyya and might have been
part of the Djerawa tribe, which, according to Ibn Khaldûn, were primar-
ily Jewish. She led armies into battle to combat the invading Arabs.
5. “Polémique: Les Yeux humides d’Aghbala,” TelQuel, no. 125, May 7,
2004, http://www.telquel-online.com/125/sujet5.shtml.
6. TelQuel, http://www.telquel-online.com/125/sujet5.shtml.
7. Noufissa Sbaï, e-mail correspondence, July 4, 2007.
8. Sbaï emphasizes that all the actors were paid 60DH (about US$7.50)
a day, which is an enormous amount in a region where jobs are scarce and
resources limited.
9. Pierre Duculot, Cinergie, http://www.cinergie.be/entrevue.
php?action=display&id=38.
10. Joël Colin, “L’enfant endormi dans le ventre de sa mère,” Histoire
et sciences sociales, 1999 (15): 260–63, http://www.lenfantendormi.be/
pdf/289.pdf.
11. See http://www.africultures.com/index.asp?menu=revue_af-
fiche_article&no=6688&lang=_en.
12. See http://www.cinergie.be/entrevue.php?action=display&id=38.
13. See http://www.bladi.net/farida-bourquia.html.
14. The First Moudawana, decreed in 1957 by Mohammed V and later
upheld by Hassan II, was based on Sharia law and the Maleke school of
thought. Because the laws were religious-based, any change was viewed
as a direct attack on Islam. In 1957 there was still no constitution or Par-
liament; the king had absolute say in all legal rulings.
In 1993, Hassan II enacted the First Reform of the Moudawana under
pressure from the increased activism of women’s groups that started ques-
tioning the validity of the Moudawana. At this time, the king gave Parlia-
ment control over more civil laws and “faith-based” laws. He, in a sense, ac-
cepted some parliamentary competency on affairs linked with faith, which
normally fell in his jurisdiction alone as “Commander of the Faithful.”
In 2004 (February), the Second Reform was decreed by Mohammed VI.
Again, the reform was due to increased activism among women’s groups,
NGOs, and national and international associations. The reform raised the
age of marriage to eighteen (for both men and women); gave women the
right to contract their own marriages (no father, brother, or other male
family member involved); gave equal authority in the family to men and
 174 / Notes to Pages 149–161

women; granted greater financial rights (women have new rights to assets
acquired by marriage); established judicial divorce (men must go to court);
verbal repudiation is no longer valid; polygamy was not abolished but now
requires a judge’s authorization. Women can stipulate in their marriage
contracts that polygamy not be an option. Divorce is now a prerogative
that can be exercised as much by the husband as by the wife. Men and
women are now equally protected under the law; however, the 2004 re-
form did not address inheritance, which is still based on Shari’a.
15. “J’aime le Maroc profondément, viscéralement, effectivement, es-
thétiquement Mais comment parler de ce pays avec amour et lucidité?
C’est à Casablanca, mégapole dense, grouillante, vivante dans un mé-
lange d’arabe courant truculent et de français que j’ai voulu me perdre
avec délices. Alors j’ai dessiné mon Aziz, mon number one, je l’ai cherché,
découvert, apprivoisé. Je l’ai détesté, je lui ai pardonné. Il m’a fait peur,
rire, pleurer,” http://www.yabiladi.com/article-culture-744.html; Qods
Chabâa , Le Soir Echos.

Conclusion: The Future of Moroccan Cinema?

1. Hassan Benjelloun described the lack of “soutien” (aide) he received

from the CCM for the distribution of his films at international film fes-
tivals. All subtitling he has assured himself, but he did indicate that the
cost is minimal. Interview, May 29, 2009, Casablanca, Morocco.
2. It is certainly an issue for Hassan Benjelloun, Lahcen Zinoun, and
Nabyl Lahlou, all of whom told me that making films with technicians from
abroad disproportionately squeezed their already small budgets. A Euro-
pean technician or cameraman will demand to be paid almost three times
more than a Moroccan. This is also the case for actors. Most Moroccan ac-
tors are paid very little, sometimes nothing for starring in films, and have
“day jobs” on which they must rely for their primary sources of income.
3. For more information, see http://www.rfi.fr/contenu/20100522–1-
une-ecole-cinema-maroc-reportage-haiti.
 Selected Filmography of Moroccan
Feature-Length Films: 1999–2008

(Adapted from Cinéma marocain filmographie: Longs métrages 1958–

2008, an annual publication of the Centre cinématographique maro-
cain (CCM). This particular issue celebrates fifty years of postcolonial
filmmaking in Morocco.)

1999

Ali zaoua, Nabyl Ayouch

Les amis d’hier (Friends of yesterday), Hassan Benjelloun
Mabrouk, Driss Chouika
Ruses de femmes (Women’s wiles), Farida Benlyazid

2000

Ali, Rabia et les autres (Ali, Rabia and the others), Ahmed Boulane
Amour sans visa (Love without a visa), Najib Sefrioui
Du paradis à l’enfer (From paradise to hell), Saïd Souda
Elle est diabétique, hypertendue et elle refuse de crever (She’s diabetic, hyper-
tensive, and she refuses to die), Hakim Noury
Histoire d’une rose (A story of a rose), Abdelmajid R’chich
Jugement d’une femme (A woman judged), Hassan Benjelloun
 176 / Selected Filmography

L’homme qui brodait des secrets (The man who embroidered secrets), Omar
Chraïbi
Soif (Thirst), Saâd Chraïbi
Tresses (Braids), Jillali Ferhati
Yacout, Jamal Belmajdoub

2001

Au-delà de Gibraltar (Beyond Gibraltar), Taylan Barnan and Mourad Boucif

Le cheval de vent (Wind horse), Daoud Aoulad Syad
Les amours de Hadj Mokhtar Soldi (The love affairs of Hadj Mokhtar
Soldi), Mustapha Derkaoui
Les années de l’exil (Years of exile), Nabyl Lahlou
Les lèvres du silence (Lips of silence), Hassan Benjelloun
Mona Saber, Abdelhai Laraki
Tayf Nizar (Nizar’s ghost), (Kamal Kamal)

2002

Casablanca, Farida Benlyazid

Et après . . . (And after . . . ), Mohammed Ismaïl
Histoire d’amour (Story of love), Hakim Noury
Le paradis des pauvres (Paradise of the poor), Imane Mesbahi
Le pote (The mate), Hassan Benjelloun
Les amants de Mogador (The lovers of Mogador), Souheil Ben Barka
Les yeux secs (Dry eyes), Narjiss Nejjar
Une minute de soleil en moins (One less minute of silence), Nabyl Ayouch

2003

Casablanca by Night, Mustapha Derkaoui

Face à face (Face to face), Abdelkader Lagtaa
Jawhara, Saâd Chraïbi
Les fibres de l’âme (The sinews of the soul), Hakim Belabbes
Les voisines d’Abou Moussa (The women neighbors of Abou Moussa), Ab-
derrahmane Tazi
Mille mois (A thousand months), Faouzi Bensaïdi
 Selected Filmography / 177

Parabole (Satellite dish), Narjiss Nejjar

Rahma, Omar Chraïbi
Réveil (Waking), Mohammed Zineddine

2004

Casablanca Day Light, Mustapha Derkaoui

Casablanca, les anges ne volent pas (In Casablanca, angels do not fly), Mo-
hammed Asli
Ici et là (Here and there), Mohammed Ismaïl
L’enfant endormi (The sleeping child), Yasmine Kassari
La chambre noire (The black room), Hassan Benjelloun
Le grand voyage (The long journey), Ismaïl Ferroukhi

Les bandits (Crooks), Saïd Naciri

Mémoire en détention (Memory in detention), Jillali Ferhati
Tarfaya, Daoud Oulad Syad
Tenja, Hassan Lagzouli

2005

J’ai vu tuer Ben Barka (I saw Ben Barka get killed), Serge Le Péron and
Saïd Smihi
Juanita de Tanger (Juanita of Tangiers), Farida Benlyazid
La symphonie marocaine (The Moroccan symphony), Kamal Kamal
Le gosse de Tanger (The boy of Tangiers), Moumen Smihi
Le regard (The gaze), Noureddine Lakhmari
Les portes du paradis (Heaven’s doors), Sohael and Imad Noury
Marock, Leïla Marrakchi

2006

Abdou chez les Almohades (Abdou at the Almohades’ house), Saïd Naciri
Le jeu de l’amour (The game of love), Driss Chouika
Quel monde merveilleux (What a wonderful world), Faouzi Bensaïdi
Tabite or Not Tabite, Nabyl Lahlou
Wake Up Morocco!, Narjiss Nejjar
 178 / Selected Filmography

2007

Adieu mères (Good-bye, mothers), Mohammed Ismail

Argana, Hassan Rhanja
Deux femmes sur la route (Two women on the road), Farida Bourquia
En attendant Pasolini (Waiting for Pasolini), Daoud Oulad Syad
L’os de fer (The iron bone), Hicham Lasri
La beauté éparpillée (Scattered beauty), Lahcen Zinoun
Les anges de Satan (Satan’s angels), Ahmed Boulane
Où vas-tu Moshé? (Where are you going, Moshé?), Hassan Benjelloun
Yasmine et les hommes (Yasmine and men), Abdelkader Lagtaa

2008

Amours voilés (Veiled loves), Aziz Salmy

Casanegra, Noureddine Lakhmari
Française (French girl), Souad El Bouhati
Itto Titrit, Mohammed Oumouloud Abbazi
Kadisha, Jérôme Cohen-Olivar
Number One, Zakia Tahiri
Sellam et Dimitan, Mohammed Amin Benamraoui
Tamazight oufella, Mohammed Mernich
Two Lakes of Tears, Mohammed Hassini
Whatever Lola Wants, Lola Gets, Nabyl Ayouch
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Zekri, Khalid. Fictions du réel. Modernité romanesque et écriture du réel au
Maroc: 1990–2006. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2006.
Ziane, Nadia. “Mustapha Mesnaoui: ‘Nous n’avons pas de cinéma maro-
cain.’ ” Le matin (August 22, 2005). http://www.lematin.ma.
 Index

2M, 75, 158, 165 Anglophone, 6, 7

7eme Art (7th Art), xv, 6, 7, Arab, 2, 4, 10, 13, 27, 29, 30, 31,
155–157, 160; Cinéma, 12,13 33, 34, 41–44, 50, 57, 58, 60,
9/11 (September 11th), 41, 50, 75, 87, 119, 135, 150, 161
112, 126, 170 Arabic, xii, xiii, xvi, 1, 10, 11, 15,
16, 41, 54, 56, 57, 62, 80, 104,
Abu Ghraib, 65, 108 117, 126, 133, 150, 171
Acculturation, 47 Arabization, 21, 126
Afghanistan, 65 Art houses, 12
Africa, xvi, 9, 25, 73, 109, 126, Asia, 109
141, 153, 159, 165 Assainissement, 96–98
African, xiii, 33, 39, 73, 74, 80, 121; Assimilation, 6, 40, 51
Cinema, xiii; filmmaking, 39 Assimilationist, 6
Africana, 122, 123 Auteur, xiv, 8, 9, 20
Agadir, 87 Avance sur recettes, 8, 126
AIMS, xxi Ayouch, Merzak, 7
AJCT (Young Tunisian Ayouch, Nabyl, xi, 6, 10, 35, 38–40,
filmmakers), 26 85; Whatever Lola Wants, 40–45.
Algeria, xxi, 2, 8, 19, 22, 23, 25,
28, 48, 93, 125, 126, 164 Bandera, La, 3
Algerians, 26, 139, 166 Banlieues, 52, 40
Alienation, 34, 37 Battle of Algiers, 26, 168
Amazigh, 11 Belgian, 38, 168
American, 44, 45, 65, 156 Belgium, 105
 186 / Index

Ben Barka, Mehdi, 22, 23, 29, 30, 85, 102, 126, 154–158, 166,
70, 108–112, 167 168, 174
Ben Jelloun, xxi, 34, 56, 65, 104, Censorship, 10, 31, 49
156, 169, 174; Jugement d’une Censure, 10, 28, 48, 69, 80
femme, 66 ; La Chambre noire, Césaire, Aimé, 23
66, 101, 116–118 ; Où vas-tu Chraïbi, Driss, 23
Moshé ? 56, 65–70 Chraïbi, Saïd, 6
Benlyazid, Farida, xi, xviii, xix, Christian, 31, 68
6, 74, 124, 150; Casablanca, CIA, 109
95–100; Women’s Wiles, 99, Ciné-clubs, 9, 14, 26
128–133. Cinéma engagé, 32
Berber, xii, xvi, 2–4, 11, 15, 21, 30, Cinéma Rif, 12
37, 85, 87, 90, 107, 132, 133, Cinéma, 3, 18
135, 137, 139, 161 Cinémag, xiv, 154
Bollywood, 9 Cinémathèque, Tangier, 12
Boughédir, Férid, 7, 29, 33, 126 Cinérgie, xxii
Boulane, Ahmed, xi, 72, 73, 109 ; Civilizing Mission, 4
Les Anges de Satan, xi, 92–95. CNCA (Center for Algerian
Bourghiba, Habib, 27, 29, 126, 167 National Cinema), 26
Bourquia, Farida, xviii; Deux Cohen brothers, 80
femmes sur la route, xviii, Colonial, 1–4, 20, 27, 28, 96, 147,
144–149 155; and film, 3, 4
Brazil, xix, xx, 31, 35 Colonialism, 30, 126
Brazilian, 168 Colonized, 6, 23
Bush, GW, 65 Colonizer, 3, 4
Communist, 107
Cabral, Amilcar, 109 Conscience, humanity of, 34
Cahiers du cinéma, 9, 18 Consciousness, 8, 24, 25, 32, 123;
Cairo, 43 collective, 36, 102, 121
Canada, 16, 38, 49, 59, 98 Cosmopolitanism, 100
Canadian, 66 Costa-Gavras, Constantin, 26
Casablanca, xv, xvi, 12, 14, 23, 27, Cuba, 31
32, 37, 38, 46, 57, 58, 69, 72, Culture wars, xvi, 15, 37–70, 168
73, 79, 92, 95, 96, 99, 104–106,
120, 133, 134, 144, 150, 157, Darija, 87
171, 174 Darija, 87
Castro, Fidel, 109 Decolonization, 24
CCDH (Conseil Consécutif des Democracy, 103
Droits de l’Homme), 35, 167 Derb Moulay Cherif, 116
CCM (Centre Cinématographique Dlimi, 110, 111, 171
Marocain), xxi, 8, 10, 11, 17, Documentary, 6, 27, 127
18, 20, 25, 28, 29, 31, 38, 41, Docurealist, 67, 108, 139
 Index / 187

ESAV (Ecole supérieure des arts 96, 101, 104, 112, 115, 139,
visuels de Marrakech), 159 150, 159, 161; colonies, xv, 96;
Exotic, 6 language, xii; protectorate, xii,
Empire, 4, 7 1, 96; speaking, xvi, 46, 59, 80
Egyptian, 7, 11, 28, 29, 31, 43–45 Fromentin, Eugène, 2, 4,
Europe, 7, 9, 11, 35, 37, 39, 49, 53, Fundamentalist, 146, 147
54, 69, 92, 98, 138, 139, 142, Funding, 39
147, 158
Egypt, 9, 13, 29, 37, 41, 42, 93, 165 Gabin, Jean, 3
European, 4, 11, 16, 24, 38, 39, 54, Global, xviii; age, 1; world, xii
77, 123, 156, 159, 165 Globality, 70
Globalization, 72, 92, 100, 138
Fanon, Frantz, 24, 30 Globalized, xii, 43, 50, 72, 73, 75,
Faye, Safi, 7, 122–24 79; world, xii
Feminine, xvii GPRA (Gouvernement Provisoire
Feminism, 131, 150, 152 de la République Algérienne), 26
Feminists, 123, 151,152 Green March, 90, 117
FEMIS (Ecole nationale Guantanamo, 108
supérieure des métiers de Guevara, Ché, 30, 108, 109
l’image et du son), xv, 7, 165 Gulf War, 49
Ferhati, Jilali, 35, 36 ; Mémoire en
détention, xvii, 35, 101, 112–116 Haïtiste, 84
Ferroukhi, Ismaël, xiii ; Le grand Hajj, 50, 51, 53
voyage, xiii, 50–55 Hassan II, 1, 8, 22, 30, 46, 67, 75,
FESPACO (Festival panafricain 90, 96, 97, 104–107, 109, 111,
du cinéma et de la télévision 114, 117, 118, 120
d’Ouagadougou), 117 Hollywood, 43, 168
Fez, 12, 37 Hondo, Med, 10, 31
FIS (Front Islamique du Salut), 127 Human condition, 73, 114
FLN (Front de la libération Human rights, xii, 1, 35, 59, 75,
nationale), 22, 26, 166 98, 102, 104, 106, 108, 112, 116,
FOL (La fondation des œuvres 117, 167; abuse, xii, 103, 108
laïques), 93 Humanist, 34, 38, 50, 55; and
France, xv, xvi, 7–9, 11, 19, 25, 46, messages, 38; values, 38
51, 52, 54, 55, 63, 64, 70, 85,
98, 107, 111, 126 Identity, 45, 5, 19, 22, 28, 30, 45, 48,
Francophone, xii, xvi, 5–7, 10, 37, 74, 134, 140; national, 1, 2, 21
60, 117, 122; cinema, 14–18 IDHEC (Institut des hautes
Freedom of speech, 48; of press, 1 études cinématographiques),
French, xii, xvi, xxii, 1–6, 15, xv, 7, 165
16, 18, 21, 26, 29, 31, 46, 47, IER (Instance d’Equité et de
51, 52, 62, 63, 68, 84, 90, 92, Réconciliation), 114, 115, 119
 188 / Index

Imaginaire, 2, 5 Lakhmari, Nourredine, 71–109 ;

IMF (International Monetary Casanegra, xvii, 40, 72; El
Fund), 35, 97 Kadia, 77, 78
Immigrant, 52, 54, 80 Lamalif, 18, 22
Immigration, 49, 69, 142, 144 Lasri, Hicham, xi, xiii, 71 ; L’os de
Independence, 19–24, 29; fer, xiii, 80–92
Moroccan, 8 Latin America, 29, 30
India, xx, 9 Le Journal hebdo, xvi, 48, 64
Industry, xx, xxi, 7, 10, 11, Le Péron, Serge ; J’ai vu Ben
13, 15, 16, 20, 26, 40, 55; Barka tuer, 30, 108–112
cinematographic, 1; film, xv, 8, Lead Years (les années de plomb),
154 xv, xii, xiii, 1, 9, 10, 22, 32–34,
Internet, xiv, 11, 14; blogs, xiv 40, 51, 55, 57, 62, 66, 93–95,
Investment, 39 101–104, 106, 111, 112, 114,
Iraq, 65 120, 132, 137, 155
ISCA (Institut spécialisé du Lieu de mémoire, 36, 115, 121
cinéma de l’audiovisuel), 159 Littérature carcérale, 102
Islam, xii, 4, 7, 48, 50, 55, 75, 92, Loti, Pierre, 2
94, 118, 131; fundamentalism, Lumière brothers, August and
15, 80, 126 Louis, 7, 71
Israel, 58, 66 Lyautey, Hubert, General, 2, 46,
Israeli, 58, 68 164
Istiqual, 21, 22, 29 Lynch, David, 80

Jawhara, xvii, 6, 36 Maghreb, 2, 11, 13, 16, 19, 23, 33,

Jew, xiv, 21, 30, 47, 49, 59, 66, 68, 74, 85, 86, 97, 141
69, 70, 107, 169 Maghrebian, 13, 14, 18, 34, 51
Jewish, 45–47, 49, 59, 67 Makhzen, 63, 104, 119, 120, 167, 169
Malcolm X, 109
Kaaba, 52, 54, 57 Marabout, 165
Kalima, 18 March 23rd Group, 116
Khatibi, Abdelkébir, 5 Marocainité (Moroccanness), 15, 69
Kassari, Yasmine, xi, xvii, 39, 124; Marrakchi, Leila, xiii, 37, 70;
L’enfant endormi, 138–144 Marock, 16, 34, 37, 45–50, 75,
Kaboré, Gaston, 10, 33 165
Kamal, Kamal, 6, 35, 40; Symphonie Marrakech, 12
marocaine, 6, 56–61 Marxist, 109, 116, 118, 127;
socialist, 19, 27, 28
Laâbi, Abdellatif, 107 Mashriq, 13
Lahlou, Nabyl, xi, xxi, 16, 174; Mecca, 51, 54
Tabite or not Tabite, xi, xiii, Mediterranean, 51, 40, 98, 111,
61–66 142, 159
 Index / 189

Melvi Order, 131 Neocolonialism, 29, 31, 67, 168

Memmi, Albert, 23 New Morocco, xii
Mémoire ; bribes de, 101, 102 ; New Morocco, xii, 49, 121, 125, 161
refoulée, 102 Nichane, 18, 164
Mesnaoui, Mustapha, 55 North Africa, 5, 6, 69, 167
Métropole, 3, 26
Mexico, xx Oriental, 2
Middle-East, 7 Orientalism, 2
Millenium, xx, 145, 153 Orientalized, 5
Mission civilisatrice, 3, 4 Oufkir, 110, 111, 120, 171
Modernity, 143, 144, 153
Mohammed V, 8, 20, 22, 29, 66, 166 Palestine, 66, 68
Mohammed VI, xi, 35, 59, 60, 63, Palestinian, 68
67, 70, 90, 115, 132, 149, 164, Pépé le Moko, 3
173 PJD (Parti de la justice et du
Monarchy, 27, 19, 29, 31, 32, 62, développement), 45, 47–49, 93
69, 75 Polars, 111
Moors, 3 Polygamy, 32
Moudawana, 149, 150–152, 173 Postcolonial, xiii, 6, 1, 14, 20, 21,
MRE (Marocain résident à l’étranger), 24, 27, 127; filmmaking, xiii;
xvi, 16, 37, 40–70, 155 society, 5
Multicultural, 15, 70, 160 Postmodern, 5
Multiculture, 15, 52, 155 Postmodernity, 71, 72
Multilingual, xi, 155
Muslim, xiv, 4, 21, 46, 49, 52–54, Rumi, Jelahddin, 130
67, 68, 107, 167 Ramadan, 63, 47, 79
Refoulement, 103
Narrative, 5 Revolutionary, 23
Nation, 20, 23, 25, 27, 31, 103, Rabat, xv, 12, 37, 95, 99, 105, 157
119, 137 Rif, 3, 21, 27, 146
National, xv, 28, 121, 126, 154,
163, 164 ; cinema, xv, xx, 1–18, Saadi, Yacef, 26; Casbah films, 26
20, 25 ; consciousness, 24 ; Sahara, 4
literature, 25 Sahara, 4, 54
Nationalism, 20 Said, Edward, 2
Nationalists, 66, 70, 130 Sail, Nourredine, 18
Nationhood, 24, 19 SATPEC (Société tunisienne de
Nejjar, Narjiss, xi, xvi, xvii, xviii, production et d’expansion
11, 124, 125; Les yeux secs, cinématographiques), 19, 126
xi, 125, 133–138 ; Wake up Scheherazade, 129
Morocco, xi Scorsese, 80, 159
Neocolonial, 31 Secular, 55, 95
 190 / Index

Secularism, 50–51 Tazi, Mohammed, A. 10, 11, 28,

Secularist, 107 31, 128, 150
Sembene, Ousmane, 7, 10, 31, 33, TelQuel, xiv, 10, 18, 117, 163, 164,
122, 168; Black Girl, 33 165, 168
Senegal, 8, 31 Third World Movements, 20, 25,
Serfaty, Abraham, 107 29–32, 109
Serfaty, Evelyn, 106, 108 Tunisian, 13, 20, 28, 29, 125, 127,
Sharia Law, 149 132, 166
Six Day War, 67 Tunisia, 8, 10, 19, 23, 25, 26, 27,
Social realism, 32–36 126, 166
Socialist, 28, 31, 32 Third Cinema movement, 9, 10,
Sociocultural, xi, xiii, 15, 20 29–32, 126, 167
Sociocultural, xiv, xix
Sociopolitical, xiv UNFP (Union national des forces
Sociorealist, xii, xiii, xiv, xvi; populaires), 22, 29
texts, 1–36, 56, 122, 128, 132 United States, xxi, 6, 9, 44, 49, 67, 97
Spain, 38, 90, 118, 138, 140–142, Urban, xiv, 71–109, 145, 152
172 Urbanization, 72
Spanish, 21
Sub-Saharan, 6, 122–125 West, 38, 42, 44, 45, 52, 122
Sufi, 131, 132 Western, 2, 9, 28, 32–34, 37, 39,
46, 52, 62, 71, 72, 79, 93, 155;
Tricontinental Movement, 30 Sahara, 90, 118
Tahiri, Zakia, xi, xviii, 124; Westernized, 52, 57, 80, 100
Number One, 148, 149–153 Womanism, 122–125
Tarantino, 80 Womanist, 122
Tlati, Moufida, 127, 132 Women, xvii, 140, filmmaking,
Tamizigh, 133 xxi, voices, xvii
Tangier, 12, 158 World cinema, xx
Terrorism, 50, 108 World War II, 4
Testimonial, 103 Worldliness, 40, 51
Testimony, 119
Torture, xvii, 101, 107 Yacine, Kateb, 23
Tricontinental, 30, 109
Twin Towers (La Grand Casa), Zinoun, Lahcen, xi, xxi, 102, 171,
74–75 174 ; and Faux pas, xi, 104–108
Third Cinema, 9, 20, 31, 126, 168 Zionist, 47, 67, 68