Directed by Kamal Hachkar • Documentary • 2011 • 86 minutes
In TINGHIR-JERUSALEM, filmmaker and historian Kamal Hachkar goes in search of a community that has vanished - and confronts fundamental questions of his own identity in the process. A Berber Muslim born in Tinghir, Morocco and raised in France, Hachkar says 'the only thing that I was sure of is that I came from elsewhere.' While he would return to Tinghir every summer with his family, it would be years before he discovered that the town once had a thriving Jewish community. By the mid-1960s though, they, along with the other 250,000 Jews of Morocco, had left for Israel. They were not driven out by rising Islamism or even political enmity over the Arab-Israeli wars that followed the founding of the state of Israel. Instead, they were the targets of a successful Zionist campaign that extolled the virtues of life in Israel and encouraged emigration. Fifty years later, their history has been largely forgotten in their homeland. Hachkar sets off in search of that history. He travels to Israel, seeking out those who emigrated from Tinghir and their descendants - some of whom identify as Israeli, while others still firmly see themselves as Moroccan. The fluidity of identity is captured through language, as participants in the film seamlessly shift back and forth between languages - speaking Arabic, Berber and French. What he discovers in conversations over old family photos and while listening to the stories of the Jews who left Tinghir - and the Muslims who remain - is a history of close co-operation between communities. They shared a common identity as Berbers, and lived in a town where 'the muezzin's call would mingle with that of the morning Jewish prayer.' In encounter after encounter, his interlocutors speak wistfully of the past - Muslims expressing sadness over the departure...
Directed by Simone Bitton • Documentary • 2021 • 99 minutes
Celebrated documentary filmmaker Simone Bitton (Ben Barka, Wall, Rachel) returns with her most personal film to date. Inviting viewers on a cinematic pilgrimage to her homeland of Morocco, Bitton explores her Jewish roots through...
Directed by Oliver Laxe • Drama • 2016 • 93 minutes
Winner of the Critics’ Week Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, Oliver Laxe’s stunning new film, Mimosas, is a breathtakingly shot Western that follows a mysterious caravan carrying a dying sheikh into the Moroccan Atlas Mountains. Somewhe...
Directed by Stefano Savona • Documentary • 2011 • 90 minutes
'Soon after the first reports came about the occupation of Tahrir Square, filmmaker Stefano Savona headed for Cairo, where he stayed, amidst the ever-growing masses in the Square, for weeks. His film introduces us to young Egyptians su...