Bastards: Outcast in Morocco

At 14 Rabha El Haimer was an illiterate child bride, beaten, raped and then rejected. Ten years later, she is a single mother, fighting to legalise her sham marriage and secure a future for her illegitimate daughter. With unprecedented access to the Moroccan justice system, “Bastards” follows Rabha’s fight from the Casablanca slums to the high courts.

Matt Shepard Is a Friend of Mine

An intimate portrait of Matthew Shepard, the gay young man murdered in one of the most notorious hate crimes in U.S. history. Framed through a personal lens, it's the story of loss, love, and courage in the face of unspeakable tragedy.

L'Orientalisme

Orientalism is a literary and artistic movement born in Western Europe in the 18th century. Through its scale and popularity, throughout the 19th century, it marked the interest and curiosity of artists and writers for the countries of the West (the Maghreb) or the Levant (the Middle East). Orientalism was born from the fascination of the Ottoman Empire and followed its slow disintegration and the progression of European colonizations. This exotic trend is associated with all the artistic movements of the 19th century, academic, romantic, realistic or even impressionist. It is present in architecture, music, painting, literature, poetry... Picturesque aesthetics, confusing styles, civilizations and eras, orientalism has created numerous clichés and clichés that we still find today in literature or cinema.

About Some Meaningless Events

In search of a subject for their film, a group of directors ask passers-by about their expectations of Moroccan cinema in the streets and bars of Casablanca.

Off Sides

When the junior ice hockey team from the small town of Náchod, in the Czech Republic, sets off in a bus to Morocco to play the away game in an exchange programme, the players and their coach expect an easy victory and a cultural shock: “bring ear plugs”, the coach suggests them with a touch of undisguised condescendence, so as not to hear the call to prayer early in the morning. Both on and off the ice, Rozálie Kohoutová and Tomáš Bojar’s camera focuses on a few teenagers and their exchanges, simultaneously funny and cruel, in a clumsy English.

Break Free - Two People. Two Years. One Dream

When Lena and Ulli start the engine of their old Land Rover, Lady Terés, they have a plan: to drive from Hamburg to South Africa in six months. What they don't know yet is that they won't ever get there. Two totally different characters, jammed together in two square meters of space for almost two years, they experience what it really means to travel: leaving your comfort zone for good.

Ieri è Oggi

Seagull dog child

A seagull, a dog, a child, a call to prayer; Looking through a window, the corridor of a train, the wall of a medina; Everyday life is momentarily paused through the eyes of a stranger in an unknown land.

Trances

A portrait of the groundbreaking Moroccan band Nass El Ghiwane, documenting a series of electrifying live performances in Tunisia, Morocco, and France; on the streets of Casablanca; and in intimate conversations. Storytellers through song and traditional instruments, and with connections to political theatre, the band became a local phenomenon and an international sensation, thanks to their rebellious lyrics and sublime, fully acoustic sound, which draws on Berber rhythms, Malhun sung poetry, and Gnawa dances.

Echoes Of The Heart

ECHOES OF THE HEART IS THE FIRST SHORT FILM OF ECHOES TRILOGY THAT FOLLOWS SOUHAIL'S MUSIC PASSION IN PLAYING OUD IN A SMALL CITY.

Hashish

A small village high up in the mountains of Ketama, Northern Morocco. The life of the people here has been shaped by the drug hashish for centuries. Hashish as daily work, hash as exchange currency, hashish as business, hashish as basis and philosophy of a social system, hashish as medium for dreams and hashish as reason for stagnation.

Aan ons den arbeid

Documentary that shows the changing attitude towards immigrant labor in The Netherlands. The documentary follows three immigrants that arrived in Holland 30 years ago to work in a bakery.

What Else Grows on the Palm of Your Hands?

The routines of two women fuse together as their similar gestures get repeated over time. Their hands intersect through their shared memory one movement at a time. The daily routine of Hayat in her absolute loneliness builds as she tries to recollect memories of her grandmother. We observe both their lives separately, the gestures of both women seem to be in an ongoing, subtle dialogue. The rhythm of the events slowly forms itself as their days go by. Eventually, the bond between them unravels the motherly love that unites them.

School of Hope

In the vast expanse of desert East of Atlas Mountains in Morocco, seasonal rain and snow once supported livestock, but now the drought seems to never end. Hardly a blade of grass can be seen, and families travel miles on foot to get water from a muddy hole in the ground. Yet the children willingly ride donkeys and bicycles or walk for miles across rocks to a "school of hope" built of clay. Following both the students and the teachers in the Oulad Boukais Tribe's community school for over three years, SCHOOL OF HOPE shows students Mohamed, Miloud, Fatima, and their classmates, responding with childish glee to the school's altruistic young teacher, Mohamed. Each child faces individual obstacles - supporting their aging parents; avoiding restrictions from relatives based on traditional gender roles - while their young teacher makes do in a house with no electricity or water.

Distance-Landscape: Football Field

Study of the relationship between observer and landscape in the contemplative experience. The view building the landscape from the necessary distance. The delimitation of its borders against the total continuum of nature. The observer immersed in the path of his gaze across the landscape. Resting the gaze in the details that make the globallity. The view selecting the space included as a landscape.

Dima Punk

Once a Punk, always a Punk? This is the story of Stof whom we followed for 8 years through the popular districts of Casablanca. He pays his independence at a high price when he finds himself arrested.

AÏT ATTA: Nomads of the High Atlas

The Aït Atta tribe of the High Atlas mountain range in Morocco preserves their ancestral right of access to the agdal, a communal land management system that dates back hundreds of years. The film follows Ben Youssef family’s arduous transhumance journey from the desert-like landscape of Nkob to the green pastures of Agdal Igourdane, throughout uneven terrain of steep climbs and descents of these High Atlas mountains. They migrate each summer with their 800 goats, donkeys, mules, camels and dogs, as they embark on this formidable journey on foot.

475

Amina Filali is a 16-year old Moroccan girl who committed suicide after being forced to marry her alleged rapist. Her tragic death dominated Moroccan and international media in March 2012. Amina had accused a young man in her village of rape, but because authorities failed to properly investigate her accusations, she was married to her rapist following a citation from article 475 of the Moroccan penal code. This article dismisses a rapist of his charges as long as he marries his victim. A year after her marriage, Amina swallowed rat poison, walked into the village market, and died. Through this horrifying affair, the film explores the legal, political, religious and social issues that plague Moroccan women - chipping away at the facade of equality that disguises a deep-seated patriarchal system.

Morocco from Above

Yann Arthus-Bertrand flew over Morocco with his cameras and asked the journalist Ali Baddou to write and record the comment.

El canto de los dioses

Road documentary that delves into the musical and religious expressions of sub-Saharan Africa. Through Mauritania and Mali, the film documents the lives of Dogon, griots, musicians and instrument makers who, through oral accounts, explain why music plays a fundamental role in the socio-religious organization of peoples. The film culminates its search with the recording of the performance of the traditional Dogon mask dance, in Begnematou, a small village lost in the desert.