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Movies of the Maghreb
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19665 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
Date : |
9 / 1991 |
1,362 Words |
| Author
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David H. Ehrlich
David H. Ehrlich, an avid theatergoer, is an independent
writer based in Washington, D.C. He has previously written
numerous essays for The World & I. |
Visions of Moorish delights ... Beautiful houris glimpsed through seven veils ... Turbaned cavalry brandishing curved scimitars ... Sindbad the Sailor and Ali Baba. While all this may have been Hollywood's (and thus Western audiences') notion of North Africa a generation and more ago, it is very far from what filmmakers from that part of the world are portraying today.
Washington, D.C.'s annual Filmfest this year presented a comprehensive introduction to the cinema of the Maghreb 1991, that region of North Africa comprising Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. A sampling of five superb new Maghrebi films was shown and discussed by a delegation of directors and producers, including Tunisian Ferid Boughedir and Moroccans Mohamed Tazi and Farida ben-Lyazid.
Serving as an introduction to the series was Boughedir's 1987 retrospective documentary Camera arabe, which traces the history of Maghrebi filmmaking from the colonial period to its coming of age in the last few years.
Although many Hollywood pictures were shot in Morocco, neither Morocco nor its neighbors had an indigenous motion picture business prior to their independence from France, gained in the early 1960s. After some initial fits and starts with government-financed and authorized documentaries of certain current events, in 1966 a group of French-trained Maghrebi cinematographers initiated an annual film festival on the site of the ancient city of Carthage. Its purpose was to encourage the development of a truly local industry.
While producing films in the Magherb was possible, the complexities of editing, subtitling, and international distribution were beyond the reach of these countries, so various French interests were of necessity involved. As these pioneers set out to create an industry to attract both local and worldwide attention, they had to deal with some singularly difficult problems:
·Lack of access to capital;
·Local distribution dominated by foreign film companies opposing the emergence of local competition;
·A misleading impression of the region throughout the world due to the image created by Hollywood;
·The love-hate relationship with France, the former colonial power.
Boughedir's documentary underscored the
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