Cult Classics in Moroccan Cinema

There are so many films we'd love to talk about on Kawalis: critically-acclaimed shorts, documentaries, controversial features, and especially, cult classics. In this feature, we highlight some of our favorites from Morocco.

The Mirage
Dir. Mohamed Bounani

"Morocco during French colonial rule: Mohamed is one of the legions of rural poor dependent on handouts. One day, he finds a bundle of banknotes in a sack of flour he humbly accepted and dragged home. He sets off for the city of Salé in order to exchange the unexpected windfall. Yet the money turns out to be more of a curse than a blessing: No matter whom he turns to, no one is willing to believe a ragamuffin like him. 'One day, dreaming will be outlawed' – this sentence marks the culmination of the film’s prologue, the narrative logic of which bows to no convention but the imponderable grammar of dreams. Mohamed encounters tricksters, soothsayers and preachers; he flees from the marching boots of the colonial troops, winding up in surreal landscapes. Ruins. Grottoes and vaults. In fields and on beaches, a nightmare without end. This Ahmed Bouanani’s poetic feature – which he insisted on filming in black-and-white despite great resistance – is at once the director’s first full-length film and the last he ever made. Its influence on subsequent generations is immeasurable." 

Via Berlinale

Wechma
Dir. Hamid Benani

"This marks a departure in Moroccan cinema: a feature film that is experimental, particularly in the second part, breaks with conventional narrative structures and abruptly counters naturalism with Freudian symbolism and sequences that are downright fantastical.

Hamid Benani, Mohamed Sekkat, Ahmed Bouanani and Mohamed Abderrahman Tazi, classmates at the Parisian film school IDHEC, came together to found the production company Sigma 3 for this film. Wechma was made in collective fashion (Sekkat served as producer, Bouanani as assistant director and editor, Tazi as director of photography)." 

Via Berlinale 

El Chergui (The Violent Silence)
Dir. Moumen Smihi 

"In the mid-1950s, Tangier was still an international concession. But the time of independence and reunification of the country is approaching. On the advice of her entourage, Aïcha uses magical practices to prevent her husband from taking a second, younger wife. The clandestine resistance of women, her family and her allied neighbors has crystallized around her. Aïcha tears off her veil as a sign of revolt. During a final ritual by the ocean, she drowns. This film deals with the situation of women, the relationship to magic, but also with childhood, the relationship with the father and the austerity of education."

Via IMDB

Sur La Planche
Dir. Leila Kilani

"In Tangier, Badia and Imane, two young Moroccan girls of around 20, walk in line amongst an army of workers who fill up the city with their coming and going back and forth. They both work in a shrimp-packaging factory, a difficult and humiliating job, where the strong odor of shrimp seeps into the pores of their skin. Badia's hands are busy but her head is idle; she perfumes herself with lies to wash away the shrimp smell and pretends to be someone else. Badia can flap her wings as much as she likes but she'll never fly."

Via IMDB 

Mille Mois
Dir. Faouzi Bensaïdi

"It is the holy month of Ramadan in Morocco in 1981. Amina, accompanied with her seven-year-old son Mehdi, come to live with her father-in-law Ahmed in a small village in Morocco, after her husband was arrested for political reasons. The arrest of the father must stay a secret for Mehdi who was told that his father traveled to France for work."

Via IMDB