international cinematic e-magazine- issue n°1
TRANSCRIPT
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INTE
RNAT
IONA
L CIN
EMAT
ICMarch 2012
Maghrebi Cinema: What Future ?
Issue N° 1
Contact us: [email protected]
International Cinematic E-Magazine
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2012 ¢SQÉ`e - ôjGÈa / CINE MAG2
2012 ¢SQÉ`e - ôjGÈa / CINE MAG3
2012 ¢SQÉ`e - ôjGÈa / CINE MAG2
2012 ¢SQÉ`e - ôjGÈa / CINE MAG3
[3]
ICM• • •
Cinema is the mirror of each society and then studying cinemas of different countries and continents means having
a window on different cultures and civilizations.
International Cinematic E-Magazine is run by a group of student researchers
over the world interested in the field of cinema. This E-Magazine is open to all the world cinemas and schools. Each
Newsletter will be dedicated to a particular cinema. This first issue places focus on the Maghrebin cinema.
Subsuquent issues will be devoted to other cinemas, like the European, the Asian, the American, etc.
The objectives are to write about
films and keep on fruitful discussions on it. We will organize seminars, meetings, etc. Different national and
international Festivals shall be covered. New films will be reviewed as well.
New contributors and commentators
are invited to have their say on this magazine columns.
Warm regards,
International Cinematic E-Magazine
1. Movies in Morocco Through History
2. Interview: A Note on Moroccan Cinema with Ait Omar Mokhtar
3. Cinematic texts: Entertainment or Containment ?
4. Women Representation in «L’Orange Amére» and «Ex-Chamkar» Films
5. Interview: Mohamed BENAZIZ
6. A Critical Eye On «SAFA’IH MIN DHAHAB»
7. A critical Analysis on Androman: I am woMAN
8. Commentary on Az Larab Allaoui’s Izorane
9. interview: Az Larab Alaoui
10. ‘Les Mains Rudes»: Discourses of Moroccan-ness
11. Boredom and Childhood in Moroccan Cinema
12. «LES OUBLIES» A Real world Hidden Behind a Crystal Glass
13.The Absence of Communication between Sexes in Morocco
14. Interview: Abdeltif AMAJGAG
15. Immigrants’ Retirement Period: Where to Go ?
ICM
We do thank very much all participants in this issue and hope
to have more in the next issue.
Do not hesitate to write us on:
[4]
FOREWORD: INTERNATIONAL CINEMATIC E-MAGAZINE!
International Cinematic E-Magazine, | [email protected]
Like it or not, we have been conditioned
to think of film through a nationalistic lens. Most of us classify the films we see into two basic categories: films that are from our own country, and films that are from foreign
countries. Awards ceremonies such as the Academy Awards in the United States or the César Awards in France in fact make
this distinction. Is it our film? Is it a foreign film? We define a category, put a film into it, and keep it there.
However, our comfortable and familiar
nationalistic lines become blurred when we experience films that are created through
international collaborations. Take for instance The Artist, the highly-acclaimed and award-winning modern-era silent film
of 2011. The Artist was made in the United States. Filming took place during seven weeks on location in Los Angeles,
California. And indeed, some of the members of the cast and crew were Americans. To many film lovers, this would suggest that The Artist is an American film.
However, The Artist starred French actor Jean Dujardin and Argentine-French actress Bérénice Bejo. It was directed by French
film director Michel Hazanavicius. Its music
was composed by French composer Ludovic Bource. And some of the additional actors and members of the crew were French. So, is The Artist a French film? Well, the answer
will depend upon who you ask.
As you read International Cinematic
Magazine, and as you continue to study film, be mindful that many hands go into film-making and that our films often draw
cas t and c rew member s f rom an international pool of talent. That means that we need to be a little less rigid in our nationalistic thinking and a lot more open
to the idea of a global cinema. Whether a cast or crew member, composer, director, producer, or screenwriter comes from your
country or from mine, what matters to film lovers like us is the quality of what we experience on the screen. If The Artist is an
example of what can happen when we have international collaboration in filmmaking, then let’s hope we see many more such collaborations across our borders and
shores. It is wonderfully exciting to see diverse people come together from different lands, languages, and cultures to create a
film.
Dr. Laura Hills is the president of Blue Pencil Institute and serves as
the Research Fellow for Academic Development at Virginia International
University in Fairfax, Virginia, USA. Dr. Hills invites you to follow her
on Twitter @DrLauraHills, to
become a fan of company on Facebook at Blue Pencil Institute, and to
visit the Blue Pencil Institute website at
www.bluepencilinstitute.com.
Thinking Globally about Filmmaking
Dr. Laura HillsPresident, Blue Pencil InstituteFairfax, Virginia, USA
I n t e r n a t i o n a l C i n e m a t i c E - M a g a z i n e
[5]
2009lorem ipsum dolor met set quam nunc parum
Movies in Morocco Through History
Many researchers agree that
there was no Moroccan cinema as such
during the French colonization of
Morocco. But, in fact, there was rather
cinema in Morocco or, better to say,
“Colonial Cinema”. This cinema
u n q u e s t i o n a b l y e m p l o ye d t h e
Moroccan space as an exotic decoration
to attract the European audience and
satisfy their weird curiosities and even
exploited the indigenous actors by
restricting their participation in mere
secondary degrading roles. This
strategy was certainly advocated at a
large scale with a view to embellishing
the colonizers’ image and sustaining the
propagation of their traditional
portrayal as the only ones in charge of
exporting the virtues of civilization and
development to the dark world corners.
In a word, cinema was conceived as a
direct efficient tool at the hand of the
French colonial enterprise.
In this connection, if we read
the famous book History of Cinema in
Morocco - Colonial Cinema by Moulay
Driss Jaidi, we will assuredly notice that
the cinematic production in Morocco
went through different principal phases,
each with its own specific properties. As
for the first phase, starting from 1896 to
1919, there were Frères lumière who
shot a number of short films in
Morocco in 1896. Still more, in 1919,
Felix Mesguich filmed the French
violence in connection with imposing
the protectorate on the original
inhabitants. In 1939 in Casablanca, the
first film plant “Cinephane” was built
whereas in 1944 in Rabat, “Souissi”
Studio was established. Moreover, the
well-known Moroccan Cinema Centre
was founded. In 1953, the state issued
the Cinema Journal in cooperation with
the French corporation Newsreels. In
the aftermath of World War II,
Morocco witnessed the appearance of a
number of international important
movies such as The Seventh Door by
Orson Welles (1949), Othello by Jack
Baker (1954), Ali Baba and the Forty
Thieves by Alfred Hitchcock (1955),
and The Man Who Knew Too Much
by Alfred Hitchcock (1956).
Mohamed BELBACHAE-mail: [email protected]
International Cinematic E-Magazine
[6]
Though Morocco won independence
in 1956, it was only until the passage of
twelve years since then that new
narrative movies produced by Moroccan
directors as well as the Moroccan
Cinema Centre started to come into
play. Thus, the first long movie which
appeared then was Life is Struggle by
Mohamed Taz i and Ahmed E l
Mesnaoui, immediately followed by
When Palm Trees Bear Fruit by Abdelaziz
Ramdani and Larbi Bennani. In fact,
these two films were not categorically
different from the French ones, as they
lived up to the same roles and topics
assigned by the French to cinema in
Morocco.
In the seventies, two Moroccan
directors, Abdellah Mesbahi and Souhail
Ben Baraka, managed to make three
different long movies. In his first film,
Silence, Forbidden Direction (1973), Mesbahi
followed the example of Egyptian
melodrama films. In 1974, he produced
a commercial film under the title
Tomorrow Earth Won’t Change while in
1976, he came up with Green light. As for
Ben Baraka, an Italian cinema school
graduate and assistant to many world
directors at the time, he shot the
following films: A Thousand Hand and
Hand (1972), Oil War Won’t Happen
(1974), and Blood Wedding (1977).
In the eighties, the Moroccan
government set up a particular system
for funding movie production, a
progressive step which largely stimulated
the production of new movies in
escalating numbers. In this respect, new
Moroccan directors, whose films
const i tuted 50% of the overal l
production during the time, appeared
such as Mohamed Reggab with his
single film Poor Neighbourhood’s Hairdresser
in 1982, a film which won him the
acc la im and admirat ion of the
Moroccan audience. Also, Mostafa
Derkaoui made a film in 1982 called
Shahrazad’s Nice Days and A Provisional
Address in 1984. While Ahmed Tachfine
directed a film called Nightmare in 1984,
Ahmed Kasim Akdri succeeded in
producing two spectacular films during
this era: The Crisis of Forty Thousand People
in 1984 and The Outcome of Winds in
1985. This era was also marked with the
appearance of female directors such as
Farida Belyazid who produced the film
Heaven’s Door is Open in 1988.
The nineties came also to
increase the movie production in
Morocco. Ben Barka presented a
historical movie called Glory Horsemen in
1991 whereas Jilali Farhati presented
Lost Children’s Beach at the same year.
Abdelkader Laktaa, in his turn, made
two movies A love story in Casablanca in
1990 and The closed Door in 1994. In
1997, Said Souda attracted the attention
and interest of many cinema-goers by
his prominent film From Paradise to Hell.
I n t h e fi n a l p h a s e , n o t
mentioned in the above book, many
other movies saw the light in the first
decade of the third millennium in
Morocco. Indeed, in this decade, the
production of movies increased from 5
movies a year to 18, including short
films. In 2000, Abdelmajid Rchich
presented a movie under the title the story
of a Flower . Subsequently, many
impressive movies were shot such as A
Thousand Months by Faouzi Bensaidi, The
Return of the Soul by Daoud Ouled
Sayyid, Dark Room by Hassan Benjelloun,
and the most recent one Rough Hands by
Mohamed laasli.
To conclude, this paper is only
an attempt at digging into the
emergence and development of cinema
in pre- and post-independence Morocco.
We selectively and steadily tried to open
a small window through history on the
seventh art in Morocco. Needless to say,
that Moroccan cinema has no long life
behind to recount, but at the same time
we cannot deny that it has remarkably
emerged from the first years of darkness.
Needless also to say that there is still
more to do ahead in order to establish a
real cinematic industry in the country.
[7]
• • •What’s the current status of
Moroccan cinema ? A hard question to
answer without being aware of every
aspect embedded in the question and
the range of varied views that can
ignite. In fact, the film critic would
express his own vision while the
director or producer would advance an
opposite view. The film distributor and
the cinema owner would also follow
suit. The question then can be
cautiously answered by asking a new
one : Is the Moroccan Film Alright ? I
would say : Yes, because by January,
2012 we have produced 23 new long
movies that were presented in the
official competition of the 13th national
festival. This number comes as an
addition to the production of more
than 60 short movies. The average
viewer cannot help but deduce that
these numbers are positive indicators.
The film production has thus witnessed
an increasing pace during the last
decade . As such, the Moroccan Film
has gained a disinguished position in a
myriad of international festivals
throughout the globe and has also won
important awards in various cinematic
specialities and occupations. This
accumulation has given birth to a new
generation of actors, directors and
photography staff. By way of example,
we can mention some directors such as
Ahmed Boulan in Ali Rabiaa and the
Others, " ا/خـــــــــــــرونـــــــــــــو ربـــــــــــــيعة علي " in 2000,
Kamal Kamal in The Ghost of Nizar "
in 2001, as " نــــــــــزار طـــــــــــيف well as Dawood
(David) Awlad Alsayid in his Film Wind
Horse " الــــــــــــــــــريح عــــــــــــــــود " in 2003, Fawzi
Bensaidi in A Thousand Months "شهـــــــــر لـــــــــفأ
", and Hakim Belaabbas in The Thread
of the Soul Narjisse . " الـــــــــــــــــروح خــــــــــــــــــيــــط
Alnajjar marked a strong presence with
her remarkable work The Dry Eyes "
in 2004, We got to know " الــــــجافــــــة الــــــعيون
Noureddine Lakhmari in his movie A
Look in 2005. Leila " نــــــــــــــــــظـــــــــرة "
Almorrakchi produced her film
''Marock'' " مــــــــــــــــــاروك " which has sparked a
huge controversy. The rate of the
production of Moroccan Films has
kept increasing due to the financial
support of some companies. Thus, the
creative standards have been improving.
Meanwhile, more other movies have
appeared such as Aziz Elsalmi's Film
The Veil of Love" حـــــجاب الـــــحب " in 2008,
Edriss Shouika's film Gone Are the Days
Mohamad Elsherief ," لــــــــــــــــــيـامــــــــــــــــــأ فــــــــــــــــــيـنـك "
Altribak's film Fellow Mates " الزمـنرفـاق ",
Salma Berkash's Film The Fifth String "
Mohamed Moftakir's, " الـــــــخامـــــــس الـــــوتـــــــر
Film Borak "الــــــــــــــــــبراق " and last but not
least, Mohamed Alaasri's film The
End "الــــــــــــنهــايـــــــــــــة ''. All these names have
pointedly appeared in the last 10
years. Some of them were producing
and directing more than a film
during the period. We can also
mention here some migrant directors
such as : Yasmin Kusari, Hassan
Lakzuli, Ismail Faroukhi, and others
who were able to produce a cinematic
artwork that have had an outstanding
echo in many international festivals. In
all, we can say for sure that around 300
long movies were produced between
1968 and 2012, given that 1968 was the
real start for the Moroccan Movie. It
was Mohamed Tazi and Ahmed
Almasnawi's film Life is Struggle "كــــــــــــــــــفـــاح
.that inaugurated this process " الــــــــــــــــــحــيــاة
These data, if anything, prove that the
Moroccan film production is on the
right path, compared to the Maghreb
and African ones. One point more, the
cinema-goer will notice that the
Moroccan film has addressed various
issues, among them women, family,
migration, and political issues during
the lead years.
A Note On Moroccan Cinema
AÏT OMAR MUKHTAR: President of the cinematic national clubs in Morocco from 1983 to 1991. The General Secretary of the Film Critics in Morocco. The Director of Short Film Speu Festival-Kenitra..
TRANSLATED: Ayoub BELGHARBI
PROOFREADER:Mohamed BELBACHA
[8]
Mohammed Zeriouhe-mail:
nnn
Literature, that is considered to
be the art of written works, is still often
approached as “the truest, most
profound indicator of the nation’s
culture and character . . .”1 (Sabina 2) as
David Carter prefers to put i t .
Considering literary and cinematic texts
to be emanating from a society’s high
culture according to the categorization of
Mathew Arnold’s Culture and Anarchy
and T.S. Eliot’s Notes towards the
Definition of Culture, renders literature
the product of a culture’s elite. If culture
is partly “sets of beliefs or values that
give meaning to ways of life and produce
(and are reproduced through) material
and symbolic form”2 (2) according to
Mike Crang’s Cultural Geography, then
a culture’s literary and cinematic
products create, either consciously or
unconsciously, overtly or covertly,
meanings and frameworks from which its
recipients experience and interpret its
subject matter.
In this realm, a cinematic text-
be it a film, an experimental film, a
documentary, an animated cartoon or
whatsoever - is an outright form of
creation, meaning creation in the first
lieu. “Not to participate in this discourse
[creation] is to decline power, to court
oppression” as Denis Cosgove and Mona
Domosh would argue in “Author and
Authority”3 (37). Consider a film and see
how it is mostly held as a construct that
informs and entertains more than as a
form that re-forms and contains. It
follows to include that the masses’
perception of photographic, audio-visual
and filmic media make believe that these
are transparent, mechanical, indexical
recordings and reductions of reality
rather than mediations of a selection.
I can never romanticize language againnever deny its power for disguisefor mystificationbut the same could be said for musicor any form createdpainted ceilings beaten goldworm-worn Pietàs reorganizing victimizationfrescoes translating violenceinto patterns so powerful and purewe continually fail to ask are they true for us.
Adrienne Rich,
A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far
CINEMATIC TEXTS: ENTERTAINMENT OR CONTAINMENT ?
CINEMATIC TEXTS: ENTERTAINMENT
OR CONTAINMENT ?
[9]
Michel Foucault blatantly announces in the The Archeology of Knowledge that “the manifest discourse is . . . no
more than the repressive presence of what it does not say”4 (25). In a cinematic text, recurrence of items rather than others
makes up their prominence and eminence, importance and salience. Put differently, the recurrence of a cinematic article
usually shapes a mindset holding it as a given, a “fixity.” Cinematic discourses do not form mimesis, yet they can highly spur
catharsis. Meaning passes through the latter at the level of the unconscious. It is there but repressed, latent and dormant. A
counter discourse can amazingly make them open up and speak louder. Thus “we must reconstitute another discourse,
rediscover the silent murmuring, the inexhaustible speech that animates from within the voice that one hears”5 (Foucault 27).
Accordingly, cinematic texts do narrate, translate, but also dictate. They tell and “reflect” lives but they enclose us in a
system of thought made of virtual relationships between peoples, items, and places. All sciences agree that we do not live in a
vacuum and that we live amidst relationships to others which define who we are. We live in “a set of relationships that define
positions”6 as Foucault’s “Of Other Spaces” puts it. In this respect, cinema builds malleable relationships. It can make the
familiar outstandingly outlandish and the outlandish astonishingly familiar. It can also render the trivial highly central and the
central terrifically trivial. It follows to note that motion picture demarcates the confines of thought and contains it in the box
of the given. It can even form new thinking patterns. A proverb in Arabic- attributed to the Muslim caliph Omar Ibn
Alkhattab- goes, “Man is the enemy of what he does not know.”7 It has scientifically been proven that being ignorant of a
matter creates suspicion and distance from it. Being familiar with another creates the reverse. In this respect, cinema can
create easily familiarity or estrangement through the set of relationships it is able to establish.
Cinematic texts are playing, in a more powerful mode, now the role that literary texts played in the past. In the
English Renaissance literature, colonial Britain defined stereotypically its own relations to the rest of the world. In literature
then, it attributed qualities it did not wish for itself to people within the borders of its empire or any would-be colonized
beyond them. “The ‘Turk’ was cruel and tyrannical, deviant, and deceiving; the ‘Moor’ was sexually overdriven and
emotionally uncontrollable, vengeful, and religiously superstitious. The Muslim was all that an Englishman and Christian was
not: he was the Other with whom there could only be holy war”8 (Matar 13). The recurrence of those descriptions in its
literary productions shaped an unnatural image about the rest of the world.
This way “[t]he Orient [became] a pretext for self-dramatisation and differentness; it is the malleable theoretical
space in which can be played out the egocentric fantasies of Romanticism”9 (Kabbani 11). This practice still shows up today
in a way or another in a big number of American films for instance: the Muslim character is usually the terrorist and the
American Christian white man is so the freedom fighter. Hence, cinema’s ability to form thinking patterns -although there are
only empirical and hardly any scientific results in figures about the degree of influence it exerts- creates texts that attribute
meanings to the relationships we build, even with ourselves. Like the case of the literary text, the cinematic text can entertain
as well as contain thought especially that the visual reaches faster than the written. A longer article may provide me with more
room for details next.
Works Cited
Arnold, Mathew. Culture and Anarchy: Rethinking the Western Tradition. Eds. Samual Lipman et al. US: Yale UP: 1994.Cosgrove, Denis and Domosh, Mona. “Author and Authority: Writing the New Cultural Geography.” Place, Culture. Representation. Eds. James
Dunan & David Ley. London: Routledge, 1993.
Crang, Mike. Cultural Geography. New York: Routledge, 1999.
Foucault, Michel. The Archeology of Knowledge. London: Routledge, 1994. --- "Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias". Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory Ed. Neil Leach. NYC: Routledge. 1997.
<http://www.vizkult.org/propositions/alineinnature/pdfs/Foucault-OfOtherSpaces1967.pdf>.
Hussain, Sabina. “Label and Literature: Borders and Spaces in PostColonial Migrant Literature in Australia.” Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature. 3. 2004. P 104. 29 Sep 2010 < http://www.nla.gov.au/openpublish/index. php/jasal/article/viewArticle/38>
[10]
Women Representation in «L’orange Amère» and «Ex-Chamkar» Films
‘Lbortokala Lmorra’ or the ‘The bitter
orange’ is a Moroccan movie directed by
Bouchra Ijork . The story revolves around
Saidia, an ordinary young illiterate woman
who finds herself unconditionally in love
with Amin. The latter remains unaware of
her love, and her plots to make him fall for
her. Seemingly, the film is a romantic
adventure that takes its heroine Saidia to a
world that is full of diverse possibilities and
consequences. Still, what strikes us the most
is not the dreamy love story between Amin
and Saidia , but the way Saidia as a woman,
as a Moroccan woman, is represented,
drawn, and viewed in the movie.
Saidia is, as mentioned above, an illiterate
woman with very humble ambitions and
aspirations. She is, apparently, a woman
who has chosen to besiege herself within the
traditional dreams of having a husband and
a family. Her very limited qualifications
have made her able to surrender everything
to make her legal dream come true. The
fact that Saidia is represented as an illiterate
woman is unsurprisingly revealing. It might
be said that, her subservience, and her
uncondit ioned acceptance of male
dominance is due to her illiteracy. Bouchra
Ijork is not to be blamed for picturing
Saidia, who might be a crystal reflection of
Moroccan women, in this very conventional
manner. Arguably, illiteracy is a very
confusing reality that most Moroccans are
obliged to adjust themselves with. Thus, it
can be said that ‘Lbortokala Lmorra’
unravels, to a debatable extent, the
components of a society that is profoundly
traditional, a society that is, obviously,
unable to gloss over the remnants of the old
traditional conservative mentalities which
potently cherish male dominance, and
which remorselessly regard women as mere
accessories.
Ijork’s heroine recurrently takes sorcery
as her absolute refuge. Her first step towards
her dreams is, ironically, made through
witchcraft. The latter is, as it seems, tackled
in the movie as an ordinary act that a
woman should go through to achieve her
goals, that is, supposedly, done through
adopting the easiest ways. The comfort,
which is highly touched in the way Saidia
deals with this whole idea of sorcery,
remains a bitter portion in our society just
as bitter as the orange might be for Saidia in
her love journey. In a nutshell, Ijork’s subtle
inclusion of sorcery, which might look
perfunctory for some, is in fact a very telling
action that represents the Moroccan society
with its undeniable bitterness, ignorance,
and cruelty. The smooth use of witchcraft in
the movie is probably a reflection of its
smooth use in reality as well. The first thing
that has come to Saidia’s mind to win
Amin’s heart is the use of some magic
which might facilitate her mission and
which may make the man be hers for good.
The fact of opting for sorcery or, of
thinking of using magic is in itself a clear
admi s s ion o f women’s i gnorance,
s t a g n a t i o n , a n d a n u n r e fl e c t i v e
subordination to untrue practices and
occurrences in a society that keeps fuelling
inequality and injustice between the two
sexes.
‘Ex- Shamkar’ is a steamy Moroccan movie
written and directed by Mahmoud Frites.
The comparison between ‘Lbortokala Lmorra’
and ‘ Ex-Shamkar’ might give us a feeling that
Bouchra Ijork and Mahmoud Frites belong
to two different worlds. Ijork’s movie opens
the door of a world that is humble and
dreamy; it is apparently a world in which
people do possess certain ethics, do respect
the teachings of their religion, and do
maintain the chains made by society. By
contrast, Frites takes us to a different realm
that is characterized by greed, lust, and
passion. ‘Ex-Shamkar’ narrates the story of a
group of homeless friends who suddenly
taste the sweetness of a funky life thanks to
the hero of the film ‘Rowayes’ who becomes
a rich man, and who decides to change the
bitter reality of his ex friends as well. The
journey from homelessness to richness
makes the viewer experience a variety of
feelings due to pleasant and unpleasant
actions in which women take part in a very
debatable way.
International Cinematic E-Magazine
Ahlam LAMJAHDI E-mail: [email protected]
[11]
The representation of women in ‘Ex-
Shamkar’ is shocking to an extreme extent. A
woman is, obviously, a mere object to satisfy
males’ thirst to sex. She is, the woman, a
happy ‘entity’ simply for being physically and
sexually satisfied. To be stated clearly, the
sexual satisfaction in ‘Ex- Shamkar’ seems to be
males’ ultimate goal that is repeatedly
achieved through women’s recurrent
availability. An availability that is always
assured thanks to ‘Rowayes’ money.
Objectifying women in Frites’ movie remains a
very disturbing fact that a viewer must deal
with. Still, it would not be wise to deny Frites’
successfulness in accurately representing
males’ and females’ greed and lust in a society
that is supposedly a Muslim one.
If Saidia in ‘Lbortokala Lmorra’ is a humble
woman who enjoys certain ethics, women in ‘
Ex-Shamkar’ seem to enjoy many attributes
except ethics. Frites prefers to represent his
female characters as greedy, lascivious, and
fun-oriented beings who keep confronting
society with its desirable and undesirable
chains. It would not be necessary to ask about
the possibility of proving that Frites is tensely
wrong in giving such attributes to Moroccan
women. The Moroccan reality, ironically,
accepts the intrusion of several ‘realities’. In
other words, Ijork’s and Frites’s worlds might
seem contradictory at the first glimpse, but a
profound look will assuredly unravel the
commonness between the two; they,
consciously or unconsciously, represent the
bitter reality of women in Morocco. Still, it
may look naïve to take what is represented in
the two movies as a real reflection of women’s
situation in the Moroccan society.
To what extent can we convincingly say
that Ijork’s classical love story is a part of a
Moroccan’s woman life? Isn’t Saidia’s
unconditioned subservience marked by a
childish innocence? To what extent can Frites
movie be taken as a real representation of
women in Morocco as well? Isn’t the two
realities represented by Ijork and Frites
deficient to a widely noticeable extent?! The
two movies do apparently represent two highly
different realities of one society. Ijork prefers
to touch the wounds of weakness, illiteracy,
and ignorance, whereas Frites prefers to take
us to the other hidden façade of women in
which lust and greed can no more be taken as
offence but as clear headlines of a life that is
bitter and cruel.
Bouchra IJORK, actress , culumunist and Morocan film director. IJORK was born in
1976 in CAsablanca.
ICM
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[13]
INTERVIEWI N T E R N A T I O N A L C I N E M A T I C
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«...Bad Deeds are Humans‘ Productions, not movies’ ». M. Benaziz
MOHAMED BENAZIZ
ICM: Thank you Mr. Benaziz for
having accepted our invitation, and for
your sincere encouragement for the
Moroccan youth to work in the field of
cinema. As we actually know your big
interest in Moroccan cinema, let’s start
with this question: What is the current
situation of Moroccan cinema?
Mr. Benaziz: The Moroccan
cinema is still young, and has
not got older yet. So, it is not
only in a good health, but it is
also enduring a rush phase; it
may fall, but it rises and pursues
its journey.
ICM: Can we say that Moroccan cinema is under a developmental state? Do you see any positive
s igns compared with other Maghrebin cinemas ?
Answering this question lies in
comparing two situations; while
one relates to what the case was
in the past, the other concerns
what it should be in the present.
This comparison leads to two
different perspectives in reading
the past and the present of the
Moroccan cinema. For the
realists, Moroccan cinema is in a
continual development and
reaches national/international
festivals, and it occupies,
cons tan t l y, an impor tan t
position in the media, and thus
are satisfied with the current
situation: The number of films
is a very compelling proof, if we
compare, for instance, the
Moroccan cinema between
1990 and 2011 . On the
contrary, there are some other
whose views are idealists based
in the sense that the model they
wanted has not come into
ex i s t e n c e. O f t h e s e t wo
perspectives, some attack what
has been achieved for technical
reasons and others advance
their critical view on moral
g rounds. From these two
vantages the assessment starts. I
belong to the first team, and I
consider that the Moroccan
cinema is on the right path.
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ICM: Do you predict ,Mr. Benaziz, the
decrease of the hot shots with the arrival
of Mr. Khalfi at the head of the Ministry of
Communication and Media, or is the case
that , due to the intransigence of some
directors as well as hot shots which are
believed to be an integral part of their
films raw materials, no change can be
expected to that effect? In addition to this,
do you see that Moroccan cinema is
influencing and getting influenced by its
environment, or is it that the films’ themes
do not meet the audience interests ?
Mr. Benaziz: We have to agree on the
following: bad deeds are humans’
productions, not movies’. This is clear
and cannot be reversed. If directors
shot marital infidelity, this is because
prophet Dauad did it with one his
soldiers’ wives, after he sent him in the
forefront of the army to die. The same
had been done with Zulekha Aziz wife
when she fell in love with prophet
Yussef.
After this short reminder, I go back to
recall what will happen after the victory
of the Islamists in the elections? I think
that the hot shots will be decreased.
Directors will be trained on self-
censorship to adapt to the logos of
chastity. In my view, it will push toward
artistic condensation. This will raise the
l eve l o f Moroccan fi lms. Thi s
experience has passed with the Iranian
cinema after the Islamic Revolution.
Censorship incite creativity much more
than when everything is permissible.
ICM: We know that Benaziz has worked
with words to voice his ideas, and his face
is familiar in many national newspapers.
What is the secret of moving from
expressing in words into expressing in
images and sound? Did not word help to
express as much as images and sounds
can do ?
Mr. Benaziz: Through my reading of
books about cinema and watching
movies writing about them, I came to
conclusions which would be of no
importance if written. They had to be
experienced instead as they fit the
camera rather than the pen. I have
worked systematically to reconfigure
myself every five years
ICM: In the same context, in your film
Broken Heart, it was the first time you
have interlaces images with sounds to
produce this film that touches on one of
the most prominent topics in the
contemporary history of Morocco, the
terrorist events of 16 May. Why was this
choice ?
Mr. Benaziz: For four reasons:
The first one is the fact that May 16,
2003 bombings were taken heavily up
in the political, media and religious
arenas, but not addressed by the
camera. This choice was dictated by the
need to get the history of Morocco into
the snapshot, to take a historical
dimension. This is a political reason.
The second reason, which is artistic, is
that it is easy to give a story an output,
when the content of the story is easy to
be narrated. It is useful to work on
telling stories on topics involving a large
audience. This reduces the need to
explain the large context of the story.
The director can express, easily, his
point of view when the context is clear
to the spectators.
Thirdly, to confirm that it is possible to
film new scenarios that go beyond
consumed topics, such as sex and the
naked street, to deep matters that touch
upon the whole social life of the
Moroccans.
The fourth reason is to show that these
events are the expression of a prevailing
mode of thinking that must be
highlighted to be dismantled. Broken
Heart gave the floor to those whom I do
not agree with. I pushed their logic to
its high limits to explode and unfold.
ICM: That's true. For example, different
mentalities exist in a single classroom;
there are students who are conservative
while others are not. This reflects the
symbiosis of ideologies and beliefs that
occur in society as a whole. Hence, the
instructor and school play a pivotal role in
the preparation of a platform that would
accept all differences. In this sense, does
Mr. Benaziz believe in the role of the
Moroccan school?
Mr. Benaziz: I certainly do; firstly,
because it receives everyday more than
six million students and, secondly,
because it is the heart of society; it
interacts with its surrounding and works
in connection with it. As far as my
movie is concerned, it is an adaptation
of a short story I wrote in the same
week when the events of May 16, 2003
took place.
[15]
ICM: You have recently made two
interesting films: Salt of Love and The
Dream for Hamburger. Are you going to
stress the same values- which we have
evoked- in your upcoming movies?
Mr. Benaziz: Though my films are
the touchstone of myself, there always
ex i s t s a cer ta in id iosyncrat i c
continuity which stems from the
viewpoint I adopt and from the path I
have been following. I consider myself
a short story writer; all the three
movies I have made so far have the
structure of a short story. That
structure unifies their form. The
difference lies in the focus; in each
movie I focus on a certain element.
For example, in A Broken Heart, I
examine the thesis and its anti-thesis
by means of arguing. In the two last
movies, arguing is done through
sequences and focus is put on
s e q u e n c i n g a n d t h e c a m e r a
movements.
ICM: According to you, what do the titles
of the last movies mean?
Mr. Benaziz: Well, I prefer not to
give any explanation to my works
since that would be the only official
reading. So, I tell the story using my
camera and give the viewer the
freedom to interpret it.
ICM : You wrote on your facebook page
the following:
"Twenty hours before the casting of
the second and third movie, I feel a
queer quietude dominating me. I read
some passages from Kalila wa Dimna
to feel the process of narration in it. I
also read from Al Mutanabbi's Diwan
(as footnoted by Al Akiri) in order to
sense the power of poetic imagery...."
After the casting is over, do you think
that these touches of literature are
present in your last works? And will
you describe your experience?
Mr. Benaziz: The judgment whether
the literary touches exist or not is left
to the viewers. As for the experience,
it was enjoyable and different from
the first one. In the first movie, it was
dialogue which determined the
sequencing of events. Conversely, in
the two last movies, dialogue was
reduced to the minimum and the
event controlled the camera angles
and movement. I also discovered that
the crew I chose from high school
have improved throughout the twenty
months between A Broken Heart and
the two other movies.
ICM: How do you perceive the lately
published cinematic magazines, and how
do you think they can raise people's
interest in the 7th Art?
Mr. Benaziz: There is no cinema
without a high level of cinematic
culture. One should first know about
literature, films and the methods of
directors...there should also be
discussions on cinematic issues. There
is a long, hard way which needs
patience and training if one wants to
have a ‘cinephile’. Magazines are the
keys to making that ‘cinephile’.
Currently, only one cinematic
magazine is published in Morocco
entitled Cinemag which, despite
financial constraints, follows the news
of Moroccan cinematic issues.
ICM: Thank you very much Mr.
Benaziz for your time.
[16]
ABDELHAFID JABRI E-mail:[email protected]
March 2012
A CRITICAL EYE ON «SAFA’IH MIN DHAHAB» OR «GOLDEN HORSESHOES»
Art is often a reflection of what
happens in reality. In many cases, it
provides keys for reflection and opens
doors for change. Tunisian cinema is no
exception as illustrated by the 1989 drama
movie "Safa'ih min dhahab" which draws
the viewer's attention to the Tunisian
political life of that time and to the
situations of prisoners when out of gaol.
By way of synopsis, Nouri Bouzid's movie
revolves around a 45 years old intellectual
called Youssef, who spent six years in
prison for his political zeal which had been
inflamed by the revolutionary waves in the
sixties. His disappointment by his
comrades, his dissatisfaction with his
c h i l d r e n ' s b e h a v i o u r, a n d h i s
disconnection with his wife rendered his
post-prison life unbearable, and made him
no longer be l i eve in h i s l e f t i s t ,
revolutionary ideas. His end was as tragic
as that of the horse he used to see in his
daydreams.
There are two focal elements to be
mentioned in relation to this movie's story.
The first element is that most prisoners
find it hard to survive after their sentence
is over. They feel unable to catch up with a
totally different world; a world different in
pace and full of change. Furthermore,
most of them discover that their closest
people are no longer that close and their
offspring exposed to delinquency in their
absence. The second element is about
oppression in Ben Ali's era. In this respect,
the movie is laden with scenes of
oppression inflicted by the Tunisian
regime on those who jeopardised its
existence. As indicated in the movie, the
prisoners of opinion were not only
deprived of freedom of movement but
also from pens and papers. The latter
were believed to be as threatening to the
regime as weapons. Hence, instead of
being a space for rehabilitation and
reinsertion in society, prison was used for
interrogation and disciplining.
In a nutshell, "Safa'ih min dhahab" is
an example of the very little daring
Tunisian pieces of art which were filmed
in a delicate period and which indirectly
foreshadowed the inevitable fall of the
long-living Ben Ali regime.
Cinema under Dictatorship
[17]
Az Larabe Alaoui’s
ANDROMAN was
displayed during Oujda
Film Fest 2012. Saad
Alami saw the film
and wrote this review
on it.
March 2012
I n t e r n a t i o n a l C i n e m a t i c E - M a g a z i n ec . c i n e m a t i c @ g m a i l . c o m
Issue N° 1
SAAD ALAMI MERROUNI:[email protected]
I am a woMAN
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INTERNATIONAL CINEMATIC E-MAGAZINE
It is a great feeling when you are
one among few privileged persons to
watch one of the first projections of a
movie in a whole country. That’s my
s t o r y w i t h A N D RO M A N, a
Moroccan movie directed by AZ
LARABE ALAOUI LAMHARZI,
and today I would like to share it
with you.
On March the 1st, the city of
Oujda gave birth to the first
Moroccan Short Films Festival, an
open space of competing for all
national short movies’ directors, and
an opportunity to discover new
talented directors.
ANDROMAN the movie was
projected in the opening ceremony. It
was a gift from its director to all of
us, people of Oujda. This film is
among recently produced movies in
Morocco, which deals with different
humanistic issues affecting the social
landscape. It won four awards at the
National Film Festival in Tangier
organized at the end of last year. I
believe that this success was due to
the objective treatment of reality, and
to the great performance of all the
actors, bearing in mind that one of
the movie awards is the best feminine
role. So, that’s why I would like to
focus on women issue treated in this
movie.
The story takes place in
Bou lmane in the reg ions o f
Ouerzazat, and it tells the story of a
very poor village, where the people
make their living from the trees of
the woods surrounding it. Androman
is the Amazigh name of the tree, the
source of the living of people, by
making coal from it. This vital
treasure makes the subject of great
conflicts between villagers aiming to
the illegal exploitation of Androman,
and the forest’s guardian representing
the authorities.
The setting, the costumes, the
behaviors, the laws, and everything in
this village was meant to represent to
what extend this village lived under
ignorance and backwardness. A place
isolated from the rest of the world,
living according to very ancient rules.
Therefore, everything was made in a
way to make you feel that this context
is similar to the Pre-Islamic era. For
instance, people still eat pork, and
deprive women from ALL their
rights.
For sure, Androman the movie had
really given a great focus on women’s
hard living circumstances in rural
areas, especially those deprived of
the right of inheritance. The land,
source of the life in this area becomes
the richest of those who have control
of it, and women thus, are the most
powerless of the chain. So, and
because of such a situation, a man
with only daughters is persecuted.
Maecenas pulvinar sagittis enim. AZ LARAB ALAOUI
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INTERNATIONAL CINEMATIC E-MAGAZINE
That is when you have the chance to
meet Androman, the girl, who seems for a glance to lose everything. Not only her
rights as a woman, but also her whole femininity. Being under the patriarchy of her father Ouchen, she’s prohibited to
m a n i f e s t a n y o f h e r f e m i n i n e characteristics. Her father shaves all of her hair making her bold, interdicts her to put
make up, and does everything to hide all of her biological parts. Besides, and under painful torture she’s forced to say “I am a Man”. This represents how “disgraceful” is
to have a daughter in that village, and how the life of a woman could be transformed into a permanent hell, unless she gives
birth to a boy.
Everything in this village was constructed in a way which strengthens patriarchal laws and behaviors, where all w o m e n w e r e s u b j e c t e d t o t o t a l marginalization. However, the movie’s director chose to show that the battle for the women’s right could only be done and fought by women themselves. The viewer can feel the different symbols presented, which all add further explanations and make visual expressions more touching. There is a toy showing a bird in a cage, translating women’s misery and their
inability to transgress the imaginary boundaries shaped by a very misogynous context. Also, we can think of Islamic religion. Personified in the person of the Sheikh, it is a symbol of women’s freedom. The village’s Sheikh was the only person who called for women’s right to inherit
from the lands, but his claims were never appreciated and his point of view never supported. We can also think of the horse as a symbol of strength and freedom. At the end of the movie, Androman rides the horse in a battle which she wins against a man, and against the society’s rules, offering a new horizon for the village’s women, and tracing the path towards a better future.
ANDROMAN is the story of a courageous woman who transformed the
impossible into achievable. It is a story which deplores the existing forms of inequality between sexes in morocco, as well as it is an attempt from its director Az Larabe Alaoui Lamharzi to demonstrate t h e f o l l o w i n g ; i f w o m e n s e e k emancipation, they will have to do it by themselves, being gathered to defend their rights, and particularly being proud to pronounce out loudly: “I am a WOMAN”.
Oujda Short Film Fest- March 2012 SAAD ALAMI MERROUNI
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[21]
Commentary on Allaoui’s IZORANEBy Bibi GASTONe-mail: [email protected]
I would first like to congratulate you
on the new International Cinematic
Magazine, conceived and designed by
students! I would also like to thank you
for inviting me to contribute my
thoughts on your First Edition,
dedicated to the film of Africa, the
Maghreb and Morocco.
While this is not the first Moroccan
or Maghrebi movie I have seen, I am
not an expert on film, Moroccan film,
Moroccan history, nor the symbols
used by Morocco’s many talented
filmmakers. I keep quiet and smile
when I don’t know what I am talking
about. Please accept my apologies in
advance if my comments do not
correctly interpret what the filmmaker
intended.
The film you have asked me to
discuss, “Izorane”, a silent film set in the
mountains of rural Morocco, is filled
with bucolic scenes from a world that is
quickly vanishing and that we are
fortunate to have a glimpse of before it
is gone. As a landscape architect and
an author, I can say with authority that
Izorane speaks to the loss of indigenous
populations all over the world, from
Nepal to Morocco to Brazil to the
American West.
Nature reigns supreme in Izorane,
and water in all its forms except ice, is
merciful. The scenes: A slippery
mountain road where a sports utility
vehicle spins out of control; a father
lies dead in the snow having taken his
hands off the wheel during an angry
cell phone call with his wife; a rustic
mountain hut where the man’s
unconscious daughter is taken in to be
cared for by a tribe of traditional
women who bathe her in sacred waters
and apply a homeopathic cure; a
winter forest where the injured girl
dreams of being visited at first by
sheep, symbols of sacrifice, and then
by the hooded horseman of death.
Izorane, one might say, is a silent
prayer, an ode to the ancient world,
and to nature. Because it is wordless,
we are reliant on a world of symbol. If
we zoom back, however, with a wider
lens, perhaps it is a beautiful metaphor
for a female’s passage from girlhood
into womanhood, or the world’s
passage into an age of “knowing.”
Whatever the metaphor, Izorane bares
witness to the inevitability of change
and passage: from ancient to modern
and from life into death.
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Izorane, one might say, is a silent prayer, an ode to the
ancient world, and to nature. Because it is wordless, we are
reliant on a world of symbol. If we zoom back, however, with
a wider lens, perhaps it is a beautiful metaphor for a female’s
passage from girlhood into womanhood, or the world’s
passage into an age of “knowing.” Whatever the metaphor,
Izorane bares witness to the inevitability of change and
passage: from ancient to modern and from life into death.
Director Alaoui Lamharzi’s opening scene delivers us to a
mountain lake bathed in high-altitude light. We could be
anywhere: in Sagarmatha National Park in Nepal or with the
the Sheepeater Indians, a band of the Shoshone, also known
as the Snake Indians who lived in the area of what is now
Yellowstone Park. In fact, we are in the mountains of
Morocco inhabited by indigenous mountain tribes that span
the length of North Africa and are thousands of years old,
the Berbers. While there are three human characters in
Izorane, one who is dead, one who is on the edge of death,
and the other who heals the dead back to life, we are
reminded in the opening minutes of a fourth “character”
that determines the quality and course of our lives: nature.
“The quality of mercy is not strain'd, it droppeth as the
gentle rain from heaven,” writes Shakespeare. From the
opening scene, we know that Izorane will explore the gentle
rain from heaven.
We quickly learn that an elderly, traditionally-dressed
mountain woman has somehow taken charge of an injured
young woman from the city after a car accident in which her
father is killed. The mountain woman goes out to retrieve
sticks for the fire and discovers a strange ragged doll in the
snow. Carrying the sticks on her back and the doll in her
hand, she returns to the hut and places the doll so that it
stands guard over her injured guest. A note arrives, delivered
by a postman on horseback, but the mountain woman is
illiterate and so the postman reads her the letter. We do not
know what is in the letter, but we do know that the letter
contains a dark stain in the form of a circle formed by the
bottom of a glass. Homeopathy being the oldest form of
medicine, the mountain woman sees the sign of the circle in
the letter and embarks on an ancient candle-lit ceremony of
cups to heal her injured guest. We assume that she aims to
heal the young woman of her injuries and to extract the
spirits that beset the modern world.
Carl Jung’s early twentieth century exploration of
archetypes, dreams, signs, and symbols lead us to a deeper
understanding of the human journey in the natural world. If
the circle is a symbol of healing the ‘self ’ in Izorane, it also
points to the ancient world as the source of wholeness to
which we might return for knowledge. However, Jung’s work
was not a retroactive roadmap to a simpler, more glorious
past. Jung’s symbols are a means by which we might heal the
divided self.
Set in a rural village, Izorane invites us into a conversation
on modernity and healing. We may be able to sustain rural
indigenous cultures and populations, but we can not re-
populate rural villages nor would we want to; once they are
gone, they are gone. Instead, the circle suggests we respect
indigenous knowledge while attending to the restoration and
healing of the split between man and nature, rural and
urban. The arc of history is long, to paraphrase Martin
Luther King, but it bends towards justice, and we should
hope, spiritual and human progress.
If the symbol of the circle in Izorane is to be interpreted
generously, it suggests inclusion, and the middle path. It is the
circle that symbolically connects humanity and nature,
heaven and earth, ying and yang, man and woman, east and
west. The circle connects the points of the star that form
when we draw two triangles atop one another; the circle
overlies the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci and the domes of
Michelangelo; the circle encompasses the face of the
sunflower while the sunflower itself mimics the daily journey
of the sun as it crosses the arc of the sky. In 'Symbolism in
the Visual Arts' Man and His Symbols (Carl Jung), Aniela
Jaffe, writes that the circle “expresses the totality of the
psyche in all its aspects, including the relationship between
man and the whole of nature. Whether the symbol of the
circle appears in primitive sun worship or modern religion, in
myths or dreams, in the mandalas drawn by Tibetan monks,
in the ground plans of cities, or in the spherical concepts of
early astronomers, it always points to the single most vital
aspect of life – its ultimate wholeness."
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Ms. Bibi GASTON Bibi Gaston is an American Author and Landscape Architect. She was born in Tangier, Morocco. Her first Book, "The Loveliest Woman in America: A Tragic Actress, Her Lost Diaries and Her Granddaughter's Search for Home, " was published by William Morrow/ Harper Collins and was selected as a finalist for the prestigious Literary Arts Society's Oregon Book Award in 2010 and featured as a Book of the Month at the Center for the Book at the US Library of Congress. Bibi is at work on a second book in which she retraces the footsteps of her parents unpublished "Guidebook to Northern Morocco," written on the eve of Moroccan
[23]
interview
ICM: International Cinematic board welcomes you Mr.
Alaoui and appreciates very much accepting our invitation
to have such an interview with us. This interview is devoted,
particulary, to your short film Izorane and woud love also to
have a look at your personal career. To start with your
career; why do Mr. Allaoui prefer to write in images and
sounds ?
Dr. Azlarab Alaoui: I always find it difficult to talk about
myself, because I always love to let my work speak on behalf
of me. Azlarab Alaoui is a Moroccan film director, holder of
a Ph.D. in Film Discourse, a professor of audiovisual
communication at Mohammed V University in Rabat, and
the founder of the Federation of Film Critics in Morocco. I
have produced six short films which are:
- Bidoza
- The Island of One Day-
- A Date in Oualili Rice Grains.
- Izorane.
- The Blind and the Gyspy.
And a film entitled "Ondroman of Blood and Coal".
Most of these productions were awarded national
and international prizes. I also produced a large
number of documentary films and three television
movies.
Dr. Az Larab ALOUI «I am proud to be A Moroccan Arab Amazigh»
Interviewer: Hicham MOUSSA
[24]
ICM: How did Mr. Alaoui came to the
areana of filmmaking ? What were your
first inspirational films at the beginning of your experience ?
Dr. Azlarab Alaoui: I joined the
audiovisual world for the first time as an
assistant director with the Moroccan film
director, Jilali Ferhati, in the production
of Moroccan films in 1992. Then, I had
several trainings outside Morocco and I
carried out studies in the field of film
production in Canada, as well as
academic studies. I earned a diploma of
high studies in Film Criticism in 1996
and a Ph.D. in Film Discourse in 2001.
ICM: I actually read many articles on
your works and found that you started
y o u r c a r e e t f r o m m a k i n g
documentaries to short films and then
long films. Do you think Mr. Allaoui such
procedures are needed in one’s career ?
That is to say, to have a deep vision like
we touch in your films, one must go
through the mentioned procedures ?
Dr. Azlarab Alaoui: I think that a film
director must meet the basic set of
qualities to be successful. He should
dedicate himself to this work and should
be knowledgeable. He should be familiar
with techniques of film production.
Ultimately, he should be human in the
real sense of the word and let his
humanity show in his work. Perhaps, my
a r t i s t i c c a r e e r i n t h e fi e l d o f
documentary and short film production,
television, poetry, literature and criticism
has contributed significantly to what I
am now, thank God.
ICM: Allow me Mr. Allaoui to re-frame my question in this formula: what is the add i t i o na l v a l u e t ha t mak i n g documentaries can give a film director later ? Dr. Azlarab Alaoui: Working in the
industry of documentary films provides the film director with an artistic touch
which derives its strength from the simulation of reality and the weaving of its strings with a mystical plot closer to God in its serenity than the human
reality in its different contradictions. The documentary film, then, is a deep work on community, its values, principles and
contradictions and is, therefore, a reading of a permanent moving and flowing world through image.
ICM: Now, let us Mr. Alaoui focus on your film Izorane. We know that Izorane is a
berber term which means in English roots ? Why a berber title Mr. Allaoui to your film ? I mean, was it done , basically, with regard to your background ?
Dr. Azlarab Alaoui: Izoran, before
explaining the source of this Amazigh word, is a film which I always consider
as filmography of Amazigh Cinema. I have participated with this film in several national and international festivals and
under the banner of Tamazight. All its prizes awarded to this film, which are more than 20 awards ..., are awards for the international Amazigh Film. I am
proud to be a Moroccan Arab Amazigh.. and I defend my identity. If you observe the movie of “Androman” its title is also
Amazigh and it is performed in Amazigh soil. I believe that Amazigh patrimony is an endless treasure. The film of Izoran
offered me a lot in my professional life. It put me ahead with an international standing as it is considered by the American website I’veseen.com one of
the best ten movies of 2008 worldwide.
ICM: Why do we have a silent Izorane ?
How was the task in narrating with solely images ?
Dr. Azlarab Alaoui: Izoran is not a
silent movie; it is rather a speaking one
via image. Though its characters are speechless, the image was sufficient in addressing the world using its original
language. The fact of not using words in the movie was a bet on writing a movie that speaks by itself, its structures, its rich
visual components, and its iconic semiology that contributes to the makeup of the story. Relying on this approach of writing was not easy; it was
a test of what I have acquired during my academic studies in writing via the image, and, thank God, I succeeded in
this challenge. In fact, the film has become a reference for visual writing teaching in many audiovisual colleges
and universities.
ICM: Izorane, «roots», a facinating short film. A failied mixed marriage turned the life
of a beautiful girl into hell. The girl chose or her father have chosen for her to live in Morocco with her grandmother and left her
mom abroad with her boyfriend to live in an exotic place in Morocco. An accident due to a call from the mother to the father caused his death and the death of the girl
later. Here, one feels that you Mr. put the blame on the mother, though we do not know the reasons of their seperation ?
Dr. Azlarab Alaoui: I do not
condemn the mother nor marrying
foreign women. I am not qualified to condemn any social forms. I try only to report a profound humanitarian
s i t u a t i o n e x p e r i e n c e d b y t h e grandmother and the girl who refused to live outside Morocco despite of the potential therapeutic that are out there.
She was satisfied with the tenderness of her grandmother and the roots of her nation as a kind of existential sufism and
return to nature. Izoran is diving into human existence. It is theosophic approach that relies on the basic
components of nature and existence; it is not a superficial movie condemning and judging plain social problems.
[25]
ICM: Mr. Alaoui, can’t we say that Izorane «roots» can attach the girl to her mother «real roots actually» than to the masculan society of her daddy ? Why Did you give this preference to masculanality ?
Dr. Azlarab Alaoui: I did not think to
give preference to patriarchy at the expense of maternity, which is considered to be the origin of all things and
affiliations. I gave priority to call the soul by cons ider ing the g irl and the grandmother as symbol of fertility and extension. The father was absent from the
beginning; he was only a bridge crossing from one life to another one which can be termed overcoming death. The human
spirit call does not choose; it leads to its world without consulting anyone. This is illustrated in the girl’s clinging to the grandmother and weaving her own
specific world that she was living on dreams. Dreams, in my opinion, are always the beginning of knowing the
truth.
Izorane is full of symbols which shed the
viewer attention. Actually, a reviewer for ICM asked me to forward you this question : what is the significance you want to put in the
doll ?
Dr. Azlarab Alaoui: The presence of
the doll in "Izoran" movie was a founding presence of the whole story. The doll’s
extraction from ice; from nature, and we know that there was ice everywhere in the beginning of the universe. The movie is
ended by re-entering the doll in water which a melted ice which is back nature. It has an existential significance about the
human journey as a whole and the journey of this girl that can be herself
considered the buffeted doll by the society whims; however her attachment to her roots enabled her to preserve her childhood. She was born, lived and died
as a child.
ICM: The Vilage is given an awesome
image, though terrible coldness and suffering looks romantic and one feels the need to see and live in such places. Clearly, you played
on colors and music. One may wonder why do we have only natural sounds; the wind, water, etc, except one episode which is done
with instruments ? And also why Tamawate voices which certainly gave a surplus effect with images ? can I say Izorane was done silently to leave space to Tamawate within
it ?
Dr. Azlarab Alaoui: For me, the
location plays a crucial rule in the plot of
all my movies. In Izoran, it was the main character of the story. The choice of the location was in such augustness and
sanctity. It was, as mentioned, the beginning of existence…in its cold rituals, in addition to the frigidity of other social relations among the husband and his wife
and the intimacy of the grandmother and the girl that was portrayed in the warmth of the house and its numerous fervent
candles and its warm waters that was poured on her back. Hence the location was never arbitrary. As for the music and
sound effects, I deliberately turned to nature as a source of inspiration, as I made it present by rustle of leaves, the murmur of water, the singing of birds,
the wind, the human voices and so on. Additionally, in music I did not use any electrical instruments, yet all the
instruments used were natural and dependant on themselves in producing sounds except for the generic song that
was made by an electric guitar.
“Tamawite” or the Amazigh cry was necessary. It is not traditional nor of folklore; yet it is an extension in the
human depth for an entire human squeal. A cry for losing heaven and descending to
earth.. I have always worked and I am
still working on the creation of a Sufi
tendency in cinematic writing. I deem
Izoran was meant to be the beginning.
ICM: We felt you want to send many
messages in a short period of time. What is
the main message Mr. Allaoui wants to say in words, not images this time ?
Dr. Azlarab Alaoui: Formulating
messages through pictures was not my principle aim. Yet it was deeper than that. It is meant to make time stand still in one
of the human Sufi moments. A moment of diving into the self as the girl dove into of the bottom of the lake in the movie. A
search for truth. Sufism in cinema is diving by picture for the essence of things. The story behind the movie is only
a cover to pass to what is much deeper than it is.
ICM: Izorane got many prizes: in Tangier,
Algeria, and Spain ? ICM broad is glad to have you in the first issue and wish all the
best.
Dr. Azlarab Alaoui: Actually, Izoran
was successful in and outside the country.
It became a lesson in visual writing in many institutes of cinema. It won many awards. However, celebrating it in this
magazine which is considered to be the first critique initiative in the first language in the world is an honor for me and an ovat ion for s e r ious and per fec t
production.
I hope I will be up to your expectations.
I extend my warmest regards to the
readers of this magazine.
[26]
INTERNATIONAL CINEMATIC E-MAGAZINE
It is important to underline the fact that cinema as an ideological apparatus largely plays a great role in imparting a certain number of artistic, aesthetic, ideological, and cultural codes to be decoded by the audience. In other words, a film is to a greater extent a labyrinthine textual structure fraught with numberless underlying codes to be identified and pinpointed by any clever semiotician/spectator. Within this framework, the Moroccan film director Mohamed Assli succeeds in subscribing to this line of thought as the latter wins the bet by coming up with a truly significant masterpiece dubbed “Les Mains Rudes”. As a matter of fact, Assli’s approach adopted in the above-mentioned film reveals that the director under study is fully aware of the message he wants to communicate devoid of any cheap ideology or superficial c inematic conceptualization. So, what makes it really an artistic chef-d’oeuvre?
As far as Les Mains Rudes is
concerned, it is about a story of a young woman called Zakia working as a tutor for kids in a marginalized neighbourhood in the metropolitan Casablanca. The latter does not appear to be content with the situation; that is why, she yearns for joining her fiancé in Spain in the hope of getting rid of poverty because she and her mother, who works as a carpet designer, arduously toiling to earn a living. Her fiancé will tell her that a Spanish committee will pay a visit to Morocco so as to select a few women to work in strawberry fields on condition that she has to be a nomad, married and her hands must be rough on top of that. Zakia will ask her neighbour Mustapha who is a hairdresser and also a broker because he helps people meet their needs for some money in return. The latter will provide her with contracts of marriage and birth of two fake children. Furthermore, she makes her best to make her hands look
rough as if she is familiar with the toil in fields, but the trick would be uncovered when the committee asks her to expose her feet which turn out to be soft. At this stage, Zakia truly feels humiliated and crushed.
As to the specificity of the movie, it certainly came to stress that there are brilliant movie directors who are armed with a profound cinematic culture/insight that is rightly far from being caught in the vortex of shallow demagogy. To illustrate, Les Mains Rudes is a worthwhile attempt in this context because it has mainly laid focus on the ills of the contemporary Moroccan society in general, the ups and d o w n s o f t h e m a r g i n a l i z e d neighbourhoods of the metropolitan Casablanca in particular. Given this focus, it is worthwhile considering that this film is a sincere window on our country in which the dreams of the poor do not come true because of the uphill living conditions.
‘les Mains Rudes’: Discourses of Moroccan-nessBY LAHMIDI MOHAMED
Les Mains Rudes de Mohammed ASLI E-mail: [email protected]
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INTERNATIONAL CINEMATIC E-MAGAZINE
From the very beginning, the audience seems to be captivated and spellbound by the first scene of the movie- the scene of birds kept in cages on a building roof- which turns out to be pretty much significant and suggestive because it really sums up the gist of the whole movie. This very scene underlines the fact that everybody in this vast space- the metropolitan Casablanca- appears to be enclosed within their cage of dreams and hopes. In other words, there is no way out or light at the end of the tunnel. The upshot of this line of argument reveals that there is a great deal of professionalism within the film. Interestingly enough, the narration or the story-telling leaves no choice for the audience but to get emotionally engaged with the narrative flow, drama, and romance of the movie. From the thematic perspective, the film plainly handles the issue of immigration with reference to the human conditions. The crucial point here is that there is some sort of intractable desire to immigrate so as to look for better living conditions, but unfortunately those who immigrate to Europe are called upon to give up their dignity. As a consequence, Moroccan citizens are in a far greater ontological dilemma, so to speak. It is much more important to note that the film under scrutiny is an artistic condemnation of any sort of human exploitation or enslavement whether in our homeland or in host countries. It is true that this masterpiece tries to bring to light all the aspects of cultural malaise and moral aberration in our contemporary society. Concerning the language/dialogue used in the movie, I would definitely argue that we are more than ever in need of the cinematic language maintained in the film because it proves to be refined to a greater extent. With respect to the filming/shooting, it is worthwhile pointing out that it turns out to be professional because throughout the movie we do feel that some images do take the place of the dialogue between characters in a very highly
artistic way. The images transmitted are considerably shocking. Taken in this spirit, the film deeply plunges into the real concerns and troubles of the different sections of our Moroccan society. Lots of scenes help the audience pin down the social contradictions. In addition to that, it puts emphasis on the dignity of woman who is going through tribulations and doing her best to earn a living, whereas the man -as is the case in many scenes- seems to squander his time in cafés.
The camera angles adopted in this film truly sums up Assli’s artistic and aesthetic vision. To put it differently, it is a new promising cinematic paradigm to be upheld instead of the ideological platforms adopted by other movie directors. The choice of spaces is largely is far more relevant and pertinent. The soundtrack also bestows upon the film a romantic and poetic touch because the music played seems to truly match the psychological and mental states/reactions of characters. In fact, part of the impasse partially seems to be settled because towards the end of the movie, there is some sort of satisfactory denouement which finds expression in the marriage of Zakia and Mustapha. Not surprisingly, this marriage in their case is a plausible solution instead of the immigration, especially that of women which is a kind of enslavement. The component of marriage symbolically sums up Assli’s line of thought/argument in this movie.
All in all, Assli’s Les Mains Rudes is a far more suggestive conciliatory moment with our national identity or our Moroccan-ness. It is actually true that the movie deals with the contradictions of the metropolitan Casablanca, but nevertheless it is one of the rarest movies that extols the components of our Moroccan civilization, especially its deep-seated customs and traditions such as Henna, Ahwach Dance, Moroccan carpet, tea…etc
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Russell wrote in his best book “The Pursuit of Happiness” that boredom is part of happiness. However, in the contemporary British life of Russell, the monotony was the standard of the British. Nowadays, boredom takes different novice forms, like one spends unstoppable hours in his/her office or workshop focusing only on one particular subject. Thus boredom becomes doing one thing for a long time. We know that Moroccan cinema rarely contributes to the issue of children and their psycho-social problems. Hakim Nouri’s “Raped Childhood, 1993” , revolves around the life of a young girl from a wealthy family. “Ali Zaoua, 2001” by Nabil Ayouch, has dealt also with the life of street children and other related issues. In this latter, the lives of three children Kwita, Omar and Boubker is a result of chaining and bad daily habits. They are glue-sniffers. They sell any object next to traffic lights for car drivers; they sell cigarettes and smoke. What is more, they are still subjected to sexual harassment by their elders (the band of a certain Dib).
The life of these children is not real and hence they were trained by the director to perform such roles in the movie, except in case of the actor Said Taghmaoui in the role of Dib who is a professional. And as m e n t i o n e d A l i ' s m o t h e r b y questioning his friend Omar about his own life; how is it ? A boring life, he replied.
The director did not ask whether these actors live a happy life or not. Since the first minutes, scenes show that routine and boredom are the main themes. Except in the case of the protagonist’s close friend, Kwita. The scenarist has given Ali a dream to see other possible worlds and forget the real life. Finding the money to realize the dream of Ali and bury him so that he can reach his dream island with two suns. Clearly, the director introduced animation and fantasy as an interposition of dreams and imagination to Kwita to face up the harshness of reality. The film of Hakim Nouri’s Raped Childhood also did not add much to the juvenile thematic in Moroccan cinema. The life of a little mad is a k ind o f phy s i ca l and s exua l harassment, on the one hand, by
parents and ,on the other hand, by their children The same case applies in the Moroccan films produced by TV channels. The example is for the film "Birds Fall Too" produced by 2M, the young protagonist followed the shortest path by reducing the dreams of his mother to become a good person to society instead of his brother, but things have changed at the end and the child embarked for Europe as the only resort from his boring life. To conclude, Moroccan cinema has not dealt fairly with the social problems of Moroccan children. Moroccan cinema has only one vision of our childhood: Boredom.
Boredom and Childhood in Moroccan Cinema
INTERNATIONAL CINEMATIC E-MAGAZINE
Mohammed AISSAOUIE- mail : [email protected]
References:. Nabil Ayouch’s ALI ZAOUA, 2oo1.. www.filmthreat.com/reviews/1748/
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[30]
This Movie ''Almansiyoon'' Which means in
Arabic ‘The 'Forgotten People'' speaks a story of a
country girl named Yamna who looses her
virginity whilst playing with Azooz; the shepherd.
Before he migrates to Europe, Azooz Promised
Yamna to marry her as soon as he makes a
fortune. After several months, and as the young
girl receives no updates from the shepherd, her
father forces her to marry a rich merchant from
her town. The night of the wedding, Yamna's
husband finds out that she was no virgin and the
news spreads out in the town, she vacates the town
to her aunt's house in fez. As she leaves with the
thought of never going back she tells her story to
the taxi driver whom suggests to her joining a
group of dancers that were going to Belgium. She
agrees in the hope of meeting her Azooz again.
Al Mansiyoune is the new feature by Moroccan
director Hassan Benjlloun, he speaks of the
suffering of Moroccan immigrants in European
countries, it also addresses the issue of illegal
immigration and the social conditions of
migrants. Percent Moroccan and Belgian actors
involved: Meryem Ajdou, Abderrahime Lmnyari,
laila Laârj, Asmaa Khamlichi sides.
The film was nominated in the festivals of
Tangier, Tetouan and Rotterdam, the film is not
directed to large audiences, as it contains scenes to
bold important sequences of events according to
the director.
The movie ''Almansiyoun'' had positive and
encouraging reviews, As it dealt with the sexual
exploitation of women across the world, but it was
more focused on the ''local merchandise'';
Moroccan women whom were presented by three
characters, Yamna, Amal and Nawal. Those girls
escaped their miserable lives and their country to
Europe;Belgium, hoping to achieve all those
components that make from a life a better
one.However, they end up prisoners for a ruthless
Mafia that is very active in Brussels in the domain
of sexual exploitation of women. The movie also
won the Moroccan best script award at the
international Arab film festival.
First time i saw the movie i liked the plot
and the story, I saw it as a strong statement that
speaks a miserable life within a life itself. Realism,
expressionism and symbolism all in one as a work
of art built from both raw and fatal cause that we
as Moroccans must be aware of and stay true to.
And that's exactly what the director Hassan
Benjlloun did, He kept authenticity and
transparency alive in his movie That shall never
be one of the many forgotten.
‘ ‘A Real World Hidden Behind A Crystal Glass
By Ayoub BELGHARBI
E-mail: [email protected]
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No one can deny that communication is of paramount importance for the construction of individuals in a given society. Communication is essential for any relation between people. Thanks to the role it has played throughout history that some societies have reached very “advanced" stages of development; while, others are swimming in quicksand unable to step forward. To say it in another way, misunderstanding others causes the lack of communication in some societies, such as the Moroccan society .If we scrutinize the Moroccan society, we vividly figure out that the absence of communication has resulted in the emergence of a gap between sexes. This latter, has grabbed the attention of not only sociologists but also film producers .This is obvious in the Moroccan film the Bitter Orange. As far as I am concerned, after watching the Bitter Orange a question popped up in my mind ,"Did the film producer try innocently to tell story of two unfortunate lovers or was it an attempt to ring the bell that sex gap is gaining ground in the Moroccan society?" I believe it was the latter of the two. To illustrate, the film maker tried through his protagonist Saadia to depict the effects of the absence of communication between sexes. Saadia was a young beautiful girl who fell
in love with a policeman, when he stopped her from ‘steeling’ the orange. The policeman asked Saadia:"why are you stealing the orange...how are you going to eat it? It’s still bitter" .Saadia said in dazzled eyes:"I'll add sugar and it will be sweet" .the policeman said:"what a pity! I won't eat what you will prepare.”This was the only and the last conversation between Saadia and the policeman .After this conversation Saadia was overwhelmed by the beauty of the policeman, whom she could not tell him about her love and was stinking to know his news. One day, she heard that he will get married, she was very happy; she thought she will be the bride. She waited him but he never came and she heard he had married another woman. Due to this act she lost her mind and became foolish. This brief summary of the story of "Saadia" reveals the wide gap between woman and man in the Moroccan society, Saadia could not express her feeling and lost her love and became madwoman, while the policeman married a woman that was presented to him by his mother ( the lady was not presented to him by his mother but by his friend’s wife). To say it in another way, Saadia is character which projects the consequences of the absence of communication, since people do not
communicate their opinions , they keep them and wait for the magic touch .Consequently , the Moroccan society experience cases like "Saadia" and the unsuccessful relations which lead to divorce , homelessness and delinquency. In conclusion, the lack of communication is the result of historical accumulations which should be corrected and it must be on the lime light of all the component of society in order to understand the other and overcome the social problems which their effects remain for generations!
The Absence of Communication Between Sexes in Morocco: How is this Absence Represented in The Bitter OrangeBy Yassine AMARA
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[33]
Immigrants’ Retirement Period: Where to Go ?
Abellatif Kechiche’s THE SACRED
SECRET OF COUSCOUS deals with a
man named Slimane at his last five
years at work. His French boss
suddenly fired him, because «you are
very tired and then you make me
tiresome», as his boss said. Slimane
became jobless. He has two sons and
two daughters from his ex-wife. He
lived with his Maghrebin girlfriend,
who had one teenage daughter.
In this period, Slimane was very
depressed. He spent few months
looking for another job, but he
unfortunately did not succeed to have
one. His two sons came to him where
he lived with his girlfriend and asked
him to return home «Algeria». They
told him «you have nothing to do here,
just go home. You will live the rest of
your life with your old friends and the
unemployment payment is enough for
you to live well there. You can start a
small business and finishes your last
days. Why are you insisting to stay here
in France ?». Slimane was shocked at
receiving such words, particularly, from
his sons. How do they leave him at this
moment of crisis ? He kept silent and
in deeply grieves to have such request
from his sons.
Actually, Slimane refused to come
back home, because he did not want to
leave his kids to have the same destiny
that he had had. And he decided to
create a personal project in France. He
failed to have loans from banks. But his
determination was very strong and he
made it alone. Slimane invited chief
bank consultants to attend the opening
day of the project and then supports
him later. The opening night was on
and a silly mistake from his sons caused
his death. In other words, one of his
sons forgot couscous in the car and the
other son took the car and headed the
subway to help a friend far from home,
meaning, no couscous for Slimane’s
clients and chief banks. That is to say,
it is the end of Slimane’s project. But
Slimane did not give up and he went
home on his motor to ask his ex-wife to
prepare another couscous, but while he
moved to her apartment, three little
Maghrebi boys stole his motor and
they kept asking him to catch them up
if he can. In one hour of running after
them, he died in the street alone. It was
a terrible end of a hard working man.
His girl friend prepared another
couscous and saved the project.
Clearly, the idea is that one needs to
run his own business and do not trust
French employers. Slimane achieved
the project for his sons and died. He
cared about his kids more than they
cared about him. Therefore, the
recurred lesson is what Abdul Allah
Samate said: «I quit my country, my
family to grow up my kids that is one
thing. Second, I hope my kids will
succeed in life».16
INTERNATIONAL CINEMATIC E-MAGAZINE
Hicham MOUSSAE-mail: [email protected]
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Roschdy Zem’s OMAR KILLED deals also with the
issue of retirement. Omar’s father was still in France,
because he was happy in France and considered it as his
mother country. He trusted its systems and taught justice
was embodied in this country. But they condemned his son,
he mistrusted this country and left home in grief and
regret. He said « France took me all what it gave me
earlier».
Immigrants during the retirement period found
themselves lost between going back home or stay with their
kids in France. It is a very big decision to take. Mohamed
Toukal says: «I want to go home, but I have kids born here.
Its their native country, they were born here. I am obliged
to stay with them».17 Hamou Gumad has got the funniest
stranger reason to say in France «I go home from time to
time and come back to France. I left my money in France.
I have confidence in France. I am saying the truth. That is,
I am saying the truth. Since I opened my bank account in
the Post, they did not take from me anything».18 Hence,
Hamou Gumad spent his youth collecting money and
wanted to spend his last days guarding this money and feel
secure about it in French banks. It sounds stupid, but they
are happy in this way.
In brief, the majority of immigrants spend their
retirement period in France, because of different reasons,
which can meet in the question of habit. They are familiar
with the system in France and they can not change it.
The Sacrd Couscous is a Tunisian Film. It was released in 2009 and got many awards
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[35]
Exclusive Pictures From Benaziz’s next two films
Exclusive Pictures From Mr. Benaziz’s Salt of love and The Dream for Humburger
ICM shares with you exclusive pictures from the two coming short films
of Mr. Benaziz’s Salt of Love and The Dream for Humburger.
[36]
VIRGINIA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY
ONLINE&
AVA I L A B L E
* Virginia Intentional University is certi!ed to operate in Virginia by the SCHEV and accredited by the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS)
Ŷ Master of Business Administration (MBA)Ŷ Master of Information Systems (MIS)Ŷ Master of Computer Science (MCS)Ŷ�Master of Arts in TESOL Ŷ Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA)Ŷ Bachelor of Computer Science (BCS)Ŷ�TESOL Certificate ProgramŶ�Graduate Certificate in Business IntelligenceŶ�Graduate Certificate in Information SystemsŶ�Graduate Certificate in Information Systems ManagementŶ�Graduate Certificate in Information Technology Audit and Compliance Ŷ�International BusinessŶ�Small Business ManagementŶ�Medical Administrative AssistantŶ�English as a Second Language Program (ESL)Ŷ�Adult English Language Evening ClassesŶ�Professional Development Programs
11200 Waples Mill Road, #360Fairfax, VA 22030FIND US ON
For Further Information Contact Ibtissam, [email protected]
[37]
THE NEXT ISSUE WILL BE PUBLISHED ON THE 21 ST OF JUNE 2012.
THE DEADLINE FOR RECEIVING CONTRIBUTIONS IS SETTLED ON THE 01 ST OF JUNE 2012.
ASIAN CINEMAS: DIFFERENT CULTURES, DIFFERENT STORIES
ISSUEN°2
INTERNATIONAL CINEMATIC E-MAGAZINE
CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS
SEND YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS TO [email protected]
[38]
INTERNATIONAL CINEMATIC E-MAGAZINE
International Cinematic E-Magazine Staff:
CHIED EDITORIAL MANAGERS:
1. HICHAM MOUSSA
2. MOHAMMED ZERIOUH
3. MOHAMED BELBACHA
4. ABDELHAFID JABRI
CO-MANAGERS:
5. AISSAOUI MOHAMMED
6. AHMED MAAZOUZI
7. LIMAME BARBOUCHI
WRITERS:1. AHLAM LAMJAHDI
2. ALI BOUHIDORA
3. AYOUB BELGHARBI
4. AISSAOUI MOHAMED
5. BRAHIM AMZIL
6. FOUAZI YASBAH
7. IBRAHIM KALLAOUCH
COMMUNICATION DIRECTORS:
1. SAAD ALAMI
2. HICHAM MOUSSA
ICM PROOFREADER:
. LAHBIB LAMRID