The Three Cultures of the Mediterranean Foundation resumes its collaboration with the Seville European Film Festival
The aim of this collaboration is to show recent works by directors from the Middle East and North Africa and Europeans from this region. Thus, as part of the Seville European Film Festival, the following films will be screened Bloody Beans by the French-Algerian director Narimane Mari; Silvered Water, Syria Self-Portrait by Syrians Ossama Mohammed and Wiam Simav Bedirxan; and The Kindergarten Teacher by Israel's Nadav Lapid.
In addition, coinciding with this edition of the festival, Tres Culturas will dedicate the 'Tuesday Film' programme in November to European directors from the Middle East and North Africa, showing a growing trend in recent years that combines an increasing number of creators from this region born in Europe or exiled there and the growing European participation, especially French, in the financing of these productions.
Despite being a prolific and quality production, these films continue to find it difficult to be distributed in European cinemas, being screened at best only in a few specialised festivals. It is a pleasure to be able to offer a representative sample of this type of cinema, a purpose we share with the Seville European Film Festival.
Les chevaux de Dieu (God's horses)
Nabil Ayouch (Morocco, 2012, 113 minutes)
Tuesday, 18 November. 8.30 p.m.
Free admission until full capacity is reached.
Synopsis
Free interpretation of the 2003 Casablanca terrorist attacks.
Little Yachine lives with his family in Sidi Mumen, a shantytown in Casablanca. With a depressed husband and four children to support, his mother does her best to support the family. When Hamid (Yachine's older brother and neighbourhood leader) is released from prison and converted to the cause of radical Islam, he convinces the young boy and his friends to join. After being trained physically, spiritually and mentally, one day they are told that they are the chosen ones to become martyrs...
- Awarded the Golden Spike at the Seminci in Valladolid (2012).
- Nominated in the Un Certain Regard section and winner of the François Chalais Award at the Cannes International Film Festival (2012).
- Awarded the Golden Space Needle for Best Director at the Seattle International Film Festival (2013).
- Morocco's official selection for the Oscars (2013).
- Award for Best French-language foreign film at the Lumiére Awards in France (2014).
With parents originally from North Africa, director, producer and screenwriter Nabil Ayouch was born in Paris in 1969 and lives in Casablanca today. Among his most famous films are Mektoub (1997) y Ali Zaoua, Prince of Casablanca (2000), both representing Morocco at the Oscars.
Portuguese