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 the sphere of the Muslim guardians of the nation’s Jewish memory, centered around the tradition of "ziyara".
In the arid but beautiful landscape of rural Morocco, the country’s youngest citizens have largely never themselves coexisted alongside Jews, although their presence is still felt in symbols, old shrines, synagogues and cemeteries. Many Muslims still maintain and find beauty in these commodities, seeing them as a timeless connection to the word of God.
Throughout the film, Bitton investigates the tradition of ziyara itself, a shared tradition between both Muslims and Jews. Pilgrims take a few days off in order to visit the tombs of saints, not only pray but more importantly to commune with nature, celebrate outdoors, meet new people and exchange ideas. The film is Bitton’s opportunity to revisit her original identity through the eyes of maturity, rooted not in nostalgia, but in her willingness to tell the story of Jews and Muslims, as has been the consistent theme in her work for decades. And in revisiting Morocco and the "ziyara" tradition, Bitton finds a story of hope.
Bitton conducts intimate conversations not only with those old enough to remember sharing their land with Jews, but with a new generation of Morrocans inspired by their heritage. These deeply personal insights include everyday people and specialists, all of them modest and magnificent heroes in a relentless quest for modernity, dignity, and social justice.
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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...