RADICAL MODERNISMS: RETRACING ARAB AND NORTH AFRICAN FILM HISTORIES is a two-part program curated by Peter Limbrick, Professor of Film and Digital Media at UC Santa Cruz and author of Arab Modernism as World Cinema: The Films of Moumen Smihi.
This program addresses aesthetic and cultural experiments that emerged in Arab and North African cinema from the 1960s, experiments that showed filmmakers and artists responding to histories of colonialism and the challenges of the present. Drawing on local vernaculars and international influences alike, these filmmakers created radical forms that deserve continued attention and discussion as well as urgent efforts of preservation and recirculation.
Retracing Arab and North African Film Histories (Part 2): The films included in the package are rare and vital treasures of Moroccan and diasporic Maghrebi filmmaking. We are proud to present the recently restored Ali in Wonderland (1976), a stunning film about Maghrebi migration and life in France that resonates with Moumen Smihi’s earlier film on this topic in Part One of our program. Also included is a rarely-seen film by the Moroccan filmmaker Ahmed Bouanani: the radical archival essay film Memory 14 (1971) which turns to the French colonial archive to create a searing and poetic essay on Moroccan history. The program also includes another recent restoration: the feature film About Some Meaningless Events (1974), directed by Mostafa Derkaoui, which is recirculating decades after it was first banned in Morocco. Together these films offer audiences an exciting exploration of the fragile and often overlooked cinematic legacy of Morocco and the Maghreb.
Film Screening
Memory 14 (Mémoire 14), Ahmed Bouanani, Morocco, 1968, 24 min
About Some Meaningless Events (De quelques évènements sans signification), Mostafa Derkaoui, Morocco, 1974, 76 min
Ali in Wonderland (Ali au pays des merveilles), Djouhra Abouda and Alain Bonnamy, France, 1976, 59 min
Panel Discussion Cinematic Archives, Preservation, and Circulation in the Maghreb.
The screening is accompanied by a panel discussion addressing the question of archives and the urgent demands of preservation and recirculation of work that is at risk of disappearance.
This program is co-sponsored by the Center for the Middle East and North Africa at UC Santa Cruz
Radical Modernisms: Retracing Arab and North African Film Histories was presented as part of the ArteEast legacy program Unpacking the ArteArchive, preserving and presenting over 17 years of film and video programming by ArteEast.
About Some Meaningless Events (De quelques évènements sans signification)
In January 1974, Mostafa Derkaoui returned to Casablanca from his studies at the film college in Łódź, Poland. Together with his brother Abdelkrim, he shot his first film in the city’s bars and streets, in the harbor ,and the poorer districts. The independently produced film was borne by a collective energy unique in the cultural history of the country, even if Moroccan cinema was only starting to develop at the time. Banned by the censors at the time of its release, this work of collectivity involved painters, actors, musicians, and the filmmakers in a radical gesture of art against authoritarianism.
About the filmmaker
Mostafa Derkaoui was born in Oujda, Morocco in 1944. Between 1963 and 1964, he studied at the French film school Institut des Hautes Études Cinématographiques (IDHEC, now La Fémis) in Paris before studying at the Polish film school Państwowa Wyższa Szkoła Filmowa i Teatralna in Łódź from 1965 to 1972. In 1974, Derkaoui and his brother founded the production company Basma Productions. About Some Meaningless Events was his first feature-length film.
- Year1974
- Runtime76 minutes
- CountryMorocco
- PremiereRESTORED BY Filmoteca de Catalunya, en collaboration avec l’Observatoire, Art et Recherche (Casablanca).
- DirectorMostafa Derkaoui
- ScreenwriterMostafa Derkaoui
- ProducerBasma Production (Mostafa Derkaoui)
- CastAbdellatif Nour, Abbas Fassi-Fihri, Hamid Zoughi, Mostafa Dziri, Aïcha Saâdoun, Mohamed Derham, Salah-Eddine Benmoussa, Abdelkader Moutaâ, Khalid Jamaï, Chafik Shimi, Malika El Mesrar, Omar Chenbout, Mostafa Nissabouri.
- EditorMostafa Derkaoui
- Production DesignStan Wiszniewski, Noureddine Gounejjar
- MusicNahorny
RADICAL MODERNISMS: RETRACING ARAB AND NORTH AFRICAN FILM HISTORIES is a two-part program curated by Peter Limbrick, Professor of Film and Digital Media at UC Santa Cruz and author of Arab Modernism as World Cinema: The Films of Moumen Smihi.
This program addresses aesthetic and cultural experiments that emerged in Arab and North African cinema from the 1960s, experiments that showed filmmakers and artists responding to histories of colonialism and the challenges of the present. Drawing on local vernaculars and international influences alike, these filmmakers created radical forms that deserve continued attention and discussion as well as urgent efforts of preservation and recirculation.
Retracing Arab and North African Film Histories (Part 2): The films included in the package are rare and vital treasures of Moroccan and diasporic Maghrebi filmmaking. We are proud to present the recently restored Ali in Wonderland (1976), a stunning film about Maghrebi migration and life in France that resonates with Moumen Smihi’s earlier film on this topic in Part One of our program. Also included is a rarely-seen film by the Moroccan filmmaker Ahmed Bouanani: the radical archival essay film Memory 14 (1971) which turns to the French colonial archive to create a searing and poetic essay on Moroccan history. The program also includes another recent restoration: the feature film About Some Meaningless Events (1974), directed by Mostafa Derkaoui, which is recirculating decades after it was first banned in Morocco. Together these films offer audiences an exciting exploration of the fragile and often overlooked cinematic legacy of Morocco and the Maghreb.
Film Screening
Memory 14 (Mémoire 14), Ahmed Bouanani, Morocco, 1968, 24 min
About Some Meaningless Events (De quelques évènements sans signification), Mostafa Derkaoui, Morocco, 1974, 76 min
Ali in Wonderland (Ali au pays des merveilles), Djouhra Abouda and Alain Bonnamy, France, 1976, 59 min
Panel Discussion Cinematic Archives, Preservation, and Circulation in the Maghreb.
The screening is accompanied by a panel discussion addressing the question of archives and the urgent demands of preservation and recirculation of work that is at risk of disappearance.
This program is co-sponsored by the Center for the Middle East and North Africa at UC Santa Cruz
Radical Modernisms: Retracing Arab and North African Film Histories was presented as part of the ArteEast legacy program Unpacking the ArteArchive, preserving and presenting over 17 years of film and video programming by ArteEast.
About Some Meaningless Events (De quelques évènements sans signification)
In January 1974, Mostafa Derkaoui returned to Casablanca from his studies at the film college in Łódź, Poland. Together with his brother Abdelkrim, he shot his first film in the city’s bars and streets, in the harbor ,and the poorer districts. The independently produced film was borne by a collective energy unique in the cultural history of the country, even if Moroccan cinema was only starting to develop at the time. Banned by the censors at the time of its release, this work of collectivity involved painters, actors, musicians, and the filmmakers in a radical gesture of art against authoritarianism.
About the filmmaker
Mostafa Derkaoui was born in Oujda, Morocco in 1944. Between 1963 and 1964, he studied at the French film school Institut des Hautes Études Cinématographiques (IDHEC, now La Fémis) in Paris before studying at the Polish film school Państwowa Wyższa Szkoła Filmowa i Teatralna in Łódź from 1965 to 1972. In 1974, Derkaoui and his brother founded the production company Basma Productions. About Some Meaningless Events was his first feature-length film.
- Year1974
- Runtime76 minutes
- CountryMorocco
- PremiereRESTORED BY Filmoteca de Catalunya, en collaboration avec l’Observatoire, Art et Recherche (Casablanca).
- DirectorMostafa Derkaoui
- ScreenwriterMostafa Derkaoui
- ProducerBasma Production (Mostafa Derkaoui)
- CastAbdellatif Nour, Abbas Fassi-Fihri, Hamid Zoughi, Mostafa Dziri, Aïcha Saâdoun, Mohamed Derham, Salah-Eddine Benmoussa, Abdelkader Moutaâ, Khalid Jamaï, Chafik Shimi, Malika El Mesrar, Omar Chenbout, Mostafa Nissabouri.
- EditorMostafa Derkaoui
- Production DesignStan Wiszniewski, Noureddine Gounejjar
- MusicNahorny