Category Archives: Tourism

Morocco Animated: the International Festival of Animated Film in Meknès

 

After an exciting week in the mythic city of Tangier for the Moroccan National film festival, I went to Meknès for another festival, one with international ambitions: FICAM, or the International Festival of Animation in Meknès. The festival runs over 5 days and is held at the Institut Français in the new town, while we were staying in a riad in the old town. The walk to the festival is steeply uphill, and so we usually arrived at the film screenings very ready for a refreshing mint tea and a film.

FICAM was launched in 2000 and focuses on animations from the international circuit. Mohammed Beyoud, FICAM’s creative director, inaugurated the festival with an eye on the promotion of the art of animation, through both animated film screenings and educational workshops. Beyoud invites animators and filmmakers from both commercial and independent backgrounds to showcase their work and provide, as speakers, valuable knowledge on a range of animation practices. It is a very open-minded festival, with a focus on students’ experiences and development. This is perhaps most obvious in the workshops and conferences that take place every day in the médiathèque: the festival’s organisers and the speakers gear their introductions and talks to the students, and constitute an inherently encouraging, if somewhat intense, part of the fest.

FICAM’s focus on women in animation

This year, FICAM’s focus was on women in animation, its trailer showcasing female figures from all over the world, including Arab, African, Japanese and European women in animation. Indeed, the banners stated assertively: “L’Afrique s’exprime” and “L’Occident est au rendez-vous”. The main guest of the festival was Brenda Chapman, best known for her directorial work on Brave (2012), The Prince of Egypt (1998) and The Lion King (1994). Chapman gave the festival’s lecture on its first day, focusing on her own and other women’s contributions to American animation. Other guests were Carlos Saldanha and Sunao Katabuchi and one particularly interesting talk was about the depiction of the Arab in American animation, delivered by Rachid Naim from the University of Safi.

Aïcha’s dancing helpers

The festival is funded by the Aïcha Foundation and the French Institute, and it receives institutional support from CCM, TV5Monde and 2M. CCM does not pay enough attention to animation, and that can only change for the better if FICAM and its visitors keep their precious work going. As Meknès is the heart of the agricultural region in Morocco, and Aïcha, as the largest concern in the canning industry, is an appropriate local funder. It was founded in the 1920s, and connects the local agricultural industry to the wellbeing of its future consumers. The mascot, a young girl, has transformed over the years into an animated advertising tool with characteristics of Snow White, as she looks and acts completely innocent, has seven companions who work hard and have distinct, individual personality traits. They all adore and protect Aïcha. (To see an example of how Aicha is animated for TV advertising, see here). The brand has grown to such an extent that as soon as Aïcha appears on screen at FICAM the young audiences go mad with enthusiasm and start clapping and singing along loudly to the tunes. The seven companions were outside in the courtyard of the French Institute, waiting for us to come out of the films and entertain all of us, but mostly the youngest kids who laughed, danced and played with them in between screenings. Animated advertising is therefore recognised as having an enormous influence on the industry of animated film at the festival, while the brand also supports and recognises the importance of the festival and its international reach.

This year, FICAM had 6 feature films in competition: Mutafukaz by Guillaume Renard and Shojiro Nishimi (France/Japan, 2017); Minga and the Borken Spoon by Claye Edou (Cameroon, 2017); In this Corner of the World by Sunao Katabuchi (Japan, 2017); Nelly and Simon: Mission Yéti by Nancy Florence Savard and Pierre Graco (Canada, 2017); A Silent Voice by Naoko Yamada (Japan, 2017); and Un Homme est mort by Olivier Cossu (France, 2018). These six films were all shown in the presence of their directors, with a short intro and an extensive Q&A after the screenings. All of the directors were either very pleasantly surprised by the attention they received in screening rooms filled with children and young people, or they commented on how much they loved FICAM and how excited they were to be there again, among the children, to speak to them and engage with the students. FICAM clearly focuses on the audience and on the education of the next generation of animation lovers and animation artists.

Out of competition the festival screened 1917 – The Real October by Katrin Rothe (Germany/Switzerland, 2017); Zombillenium by Arthur de Pins and Alexis Ducord (France, 2017); Iqbal, l’enfant qui n’avait pas peur by Michel Fuzellier and Babak Payami (France/Italy, 2016); Coco by Lee Unkrich and Adrian Molina (USA, 2017); The Jungle Bunch by David Alaux (France, 2017); Ferdinand by Carlos Saldanha (2017) and Drôles de petites bêtes by Arnaud Bouron and Antoon Krings (2017).

FICAM at the French Institute in Meknès

There was a special focus on Japanese anime, with classics such as Momorato by Mitsuyo Seo (1945); Arrietty by Sunao Katabuchi (2001); as well as newer materials such as Lou over the Wall (2017); The Napping Princess by Kenji Kamiyama (2017) and Mazinger Z by Junji Shimizu (2017).

The short film competition likewise was incredibly rich, with films from all over the world, and ran over four days, screening five to six films every evening at 9pm. This wide variety was matched by the array of professionals, students and fans at some of the many talks, discussions, roundtables and ‘thé à la menthe’ moments in the café of the Institut Français. In the coming blog entries, I will reflect a little bit more on each of these aspects of FICAM, and on the winners of the competitions.

Stefanie Van de Peer

Ouarzazate Movie at IDFA 2017: A Revelation of Continued Cinematic Imperialism in the Moroccan Desert

 

Moroccan films and documentaries are currently really well-represented at film festivals around the world. The TMC team of course screened Aïta and Trances at Africa in Motion (see Will Higbee’s blog); the Kolkata Film Festival in India screened seven contemporary Moroccan films; Volubilis by Faouzi Bensaïdi was screened at Venice and in Carthage and will doubtless visit many festivals worldwide this year; and Razzia by Nabil Ayouch has been selected as Morocco’s entry in the pre-selections for Best Foreign Film at the 2018 Oscars. And these are of course just a few examples: we all know there are some very exciting films to be screened at some of the largest festivals in the world next year.

IDFA 2017

My most recent festival experience was of six MENA films at IDFA, the world’s most famous international film festival dedicated to documentaries, in Amsterdam. It is one of the most enjoyable, laid-back and convivial festivals I know and I like to visit it every year, mostly because it has always been really good at representing the transnational nature of the documentary industry. From its inception, this festival has had a focus not only on Dutch or European and American docs but also on African, Arab and Latin American, Asian and Australasian films. It really is one of those festivals that make genuine attempts to be all-inclusive and diverse. It avoids red carpet events, focuses on networking events and meetings, and opens up doors both to the industry and to a very loyal and enthusiastic local audience, through affordable ticketing and accreditation. The only downside to the festival, from my perspective, is that it is located in one of the most expensive cities in Europe.

One of my highlights this year was the screening of two modest Moroccan films: Ouarzazate Movie and House in the Fields, on Thursday 23 November. I especially liked Ouarzazate Movie by Ali Essafi, a film from 2001, primarily perhaps because Ouarzazate has been in the news recently, with Noureddine Sail pointing out that Ourzazate as a film location encounters serious issues due to its isolation. In an interview published in English on MENAFM he said: “The problems that hinder film production in Ouarzazate aren’t related to cinema as much as they’re related to the region itself. The region is isolated. There aren’t enough roads to get here. There aren’t enough airline flights. This isolation creates problems. Some international producers come here only because they’re compelled to due to the location’s history with Lawrence of Arabia and other famous films like The Mummy and Gladiator. They say there’s no place where they can film better than this one. We can say that the region of Ouarzazate is like an open studio. But once the issues of transportation put pressure on producers, many of them look elsewhere.” Even as the CCM is now focusing its attention on creating extra incentives through tax rebates and an increasingly professional crew locally, the issue of isolation and a continued lack of communication hamper the studios’ potential.

Checking out the Extras

In the film, we see how foreign film production companies come to this isolated place in the desert, working with local companies such as Dune Films, for setting and location, with or without production incentives. The film focuses on the methods used by these companies to communicate with the local population who are looking for jobs and see themselves as an inherent part of the local film history.

The recruitment process is brutal. The local people are all too willing to be part of a Hollywood production, and they have memories of working on Lawrence of Arabia, or with Paolo Pasolini. One older man in particular reminisces on being Pasolini’s personal assistant and the interviewers become really interested in Pasolini’s attitude towards the man.

Watching Films together

He smiles and gives nothing away! The filmmaker also shows the men and women – who are or have been extras in the past – footage of the films they have been in. It becomes clear that they have never seen these films, but it is also exciting to see how they recognise themselves, neighbours, parents, and friends, as people with no specific role but on-screen nonetheless.

Ali Essafi films these hopefuls coming together and competing with one another on a grandstand, putting themselves on display to American, French, Italian and Canadian film producers who have determined beforehand exactly which skin colour, sex and age they need. They survey the crowd as if they were visiting a cattle market. The lucky few to be selected then go on to work crazy hours for a pittance. Women and children are set entirely apart from the men and are treated with more contempt, dismissal and a total lack of empathy by the recruiters than the men, who seem to have formed a hierarchy, with some more confident about their chances precisely because they have been recruited so many times in the past, as they fit a stereotypical image of the generic desert dweller: old, tall and lean, face marked with deep wrinkles and the characteristic beard.

Wardrobe tests

Essafi reveals how communication between production companies internally and between production companies and extras is entirely negligible and one-directional, with no regard whatsoever for the rights and circumstances of their employees, and health hazards are ignored—it’s clearly only about the money, for the foreign companies, not for the locals. Nevertheless, some of the men who have been able to return to several roles on these visiting films have been able to buy or build their houses from their very low wages: each time a pay check comes in they can finish another wall, ceiling or door.

Ouarzazate Movie shows all too clearly that while the films may look stunning on our silver screens, and that foreign productions do indeed come to the studios in Ouarzazate, Saïl has a good point about the actual situation for the local talent and life behind the scenes being entirely neglected and underdeveloped. Once you understand this film, you will look at the famous blockbusters with very different eyes. Western imperialism still reigns unashamedly supreme in the Ouarzazate desert.

Ali Essafi

Ali Essafi was born in Morocco in 1963. He studied psychology in France before entering the world of filmmaking. His films include: General, Here We Are (1997); The Silence of the Beet Fields (1998); Ouarzazate Movie (2001); and Shikhat’s Blues (2004). He lives and works in Morocco and Brazil.

 

Stefanie Van de Peer

Noureddine Lakhmari’s Burnout: the anti moucharabieh cinema!

 

On set – Burnout

Lakhmari’s Burnout has just been released in Morocco and it is quite an event! It came out on October 11 in the major cities (where there are still movie theaters…).

When I saw Noureddine Lakhmari in Tangier briefly the week before, he had told me how Moroccan cinema was not what Moroccan tourism was about: “it is not about the food, the tiles, the camels – have you seen many camels around here?… it is about a reality people can relate to, a daily life they know, an urban landscape they can identify, not a cleaned up, orientalist version of themselves.”

Poster Burnout (2017, Lakhmari)

Then I saw Burnout, the last part of his trilogy after Casanegra (2009) and Zero (2012). Again, the Casablancais are the focus of this film, but, rather than showing them in a ghettoized fashion, along separate destinies, Lakhmari decides to have them cross one another’s paths. Although some critics in Morocco have marveled at how lushly the white city is portrayed, I tend to disagree: Casablanca is shot mostly in interiors, and/or mostly at night, as the camera follows the various characters whose itineraries intersect. The film is not about Casablanca’s wide cityscape but rather focuses on the pointed intersections Casablanca may provide for people from the top 1% (Ines, the manager of an art gallery and her husband Jad; a rich artist; a corrupt politician on the Islamist side of the spectrum) to bump into the shrinking middle-class (a student in medical school struggling to make ends meet) and the poor class of the street shoe shiners (a motley crew of kids hired by a man in love with a one-legged woman who can never find work).

If it is about Casablanca, then it is about how the economical capital of Morocco allows its infinitely socially layered population to circulate and at times bump into one another. As a result, unpredictable encounters can happen in the city, some of them violent (the student and the politician, a kid and his so-called “uncle”), some of them magical. Among the latter, Ayoub, the shoeshine boy (played by Ilyas el Jihani, L’Orchestre des aveugles, Mohamed Mouftakir, 2015) meets Jad, the rich man whose father frustrated his dream of becoming a car racer.

These uneasy temporary joining of characters are filmed straight on, resulting in drama or humor (there is a bitter-sweet hilarious scene in a restaurant where the waiter describes the menu in perfect Nouvelle Cuisine French to a befuddled, darija-speaking audience of first-timers used to entirely different food and places). The image is sleek, very clear, the close ups on Jad’s facial scar, on the shoeshine boys‘ dirty skin and clothes, on a beggar’s nails black with grime are detailed, almost hyper-realistic. Lakhmari is clearly intent on showing us the gaping differences between people sharing the same spot with ruthless clarity and from as close up as possible: this is not a view from afar. As a result, we, as viewers, do not experience a panoramic view of the city from a protected moucharabieh: we can almost smell the urine and the sweat in the slums, and we feel the pain of Aida as she screams.

Noureddine Lakhmari

Some of Lakhmari’s themes and images from the previous two films are still present here: women are tough; men are violent, abusive; there is yet another impotent man (this time not old but middle-aged) and the character is slowly becoming crippled. This time, however, he will not die during the filmic narrative…

Obviously, Lakhmari does not want to hide his truth and does not want Moroccans to be tourists in their own landscape. Yet, in the end, you leave the theater with the laughter of Ayoub and Jad in your ears – perhaps a sliver of hope.

 

Florence Martin

The Uncanny Familiarity of Casablanca

cinema empire Casa
Cinema Empire, Casablanca

Riding the train from Rabat to Casablanca for the first time, my eyes are glued to the train window, even if the latter has seen better and cleaner days: a yellowish haze filters the screen of the shifting landscape. Past the station of Mohammedia, the surroundings change from industrial wasteland to “residential”: the first bidonville appears (the term first appeared in French to qualify the slums of Casablanca, as the city sprawled from a mere 20,000 in 1907 to today’s 2.5 million and counting), and will be followed by many more, huddled along garbage dumps where the refuse of the neighboring urban centers is piled high and oozes past the main heap in all directions. My surprise comes from a feeling of déjà vu: I recognize the slums of Nabil Ayouch’s Horses of God, of Yassine Fennane’s Karyan Bollywood. I register the patchwork of roofs sprouting with satellite dishes in haphazard rows like invasive weeds.

Once in the city, riding a petit taxi to my first appointment downtown, I soon find myself in one of these famous Casablanca traffic jams: noisy, utterly chaotic, but again not startling, a pale version of those in Noureddine Lakhmari’s Zero (I do get slightly concerned, however, when my taxi abruptly jerks to the right to follow the shiny black Audi that has just inaugurated a third lane in a two-lane boulevard).

Bensaidi, What a Wonderful World (2006)
Bensaidi, What a Wonderful World (2006)

I reach my destination near the Twin Center and, upon seeing the twin towers of Casablanca, realize with a twinge of disappointment that Bensaïdi’s What a Wonderful World had made them taller, more foreboding, whiter! My filmic familiarity with them now morphs into a bizarre nostalgia for a place that never was: a filmic fantasy achieved with a bright filter, larger than life.

On my way to another appointment, I pass restaurants and cafés that spring out of Nabil Ayouch’s Ali Zawa, Noureddine Lakhmari’s Casanegra, and finally What a Wonderful World, the café in which Kamel waits for Kenza. At that precise moment, as the taxi is going around the circle in front of the – by now for me mythical – brasserie, it starts to rain heavy drops, vertically, very much like the selective cloud that empties itself exclusively over the two protagonists in WWW.

The cinematic bubble of Casablanca has taken over the physical Casablanca in which I find myself. Puzzled by this form of cine-tourism to which I have unwittingly fallen prey, I nonetheless keep identifying sights from film and film from sights, at each turn in the city. It will take several more ventures to Casa to reel the films back and start to see the city afresh, no longer a movie set…

Florence Martin