Morocco through the motion picture lens

Mike Newmark Assistant News Editor

Between Feb. 2 and March 30, the International Studies Department is sponsoring a screening of Moroccan films. Each of the films plumbs issues that are pertinent to Moroccan society, including religion, women’s roles, family dynamics and street life. The film screenings give Vassar students a taste of Moroccan life and culture, and also prepare students enrolled in this year’s International Studies Spring Break study trip to Morocco.

Two of the films have already been screened. Ali Zaoua: Prince de la Rue (2000), shown on Feb. 2, has won over 40 international film festival awards, including the Ecumenical Award at the 2000 Montreal World Film Festival. The film is about a gang of street children who navigate the seamy underside of Casablanca and attempt to pay homage to their leader, Ali Zaoua, who was killed by a rival gang member.

A Door to the Sky (1988), screened on Feb. 16, portrays a Westernized young woman who experiences a spiritual awakening and is compelled to turn her late father’s home into a Muslim women’s shelter.

Upcoming screenings include the documentaries In My Father’s House (1997) and Boujad: A Nest in the Heat (1992)/Whispers (1999). Fatima Jebli Ouazzani’s In My Father’s House (which will be screened on March 2) deals frankly with gender roles, and chronicles Ouazzani’s rejection of female subordination and restrictive Islamic marriage customs. Boujad: A Nest in the Heat and Whispers are two short films by Hakim Belabbes that will be screened on March 30. Boujad finds Belabbes making a pilgrimage from Chicago to Boujad—his hometown in Morocco—where he is forced to examine his family relationships in a way that he never had while in America. The 15-minute short film Whispers documents a man’s quest to find his childhood in the unforgiving town of Boujad.

Visiting Instructor of Religion Margaret Leeming coordinates the screenings. Leeming has chosen the films based on past film series and the issues that they tackle.

“None of these films are period pieces, but through them, one can see how the various forces of the past make Morocco what it is today,” said Leeming. “They show us people who come to terms with their religiosity, people who struggle to be Moroccan in a post-colonial world, people who come home to a place they once rejected and now embrace. These films ultimately deal with issues of identity and what it is really like to be a Moroccan.”

The remaining films will be screened in Rockefeller Hall 200 on Thursdays from 8:45 to 10:45 p.m.