Source: www.filmindependent.org
We open the month of April in Martes de Cine with a cycle dedicated to Moroccan production, screening two short films directed by two Moroccan creators, Houda Lakhdar and Sofia Aissaoui, who will join us to discuss the film and television industry in Morocco.
The screenwriters and film directors met at the École Supérieure des Arts Visuels (ESAV) in Marrakech and have been working together ever since. Neither of them had a clear idea of going into film, Sofia wanted to be a journalist and Houda was studying architecture. Both came to filmmaking after discovering a passion for storytelling and a desire to explore issues in depth through the stories they told.
Together they are today promising talents in the Moroccan film and television industry. Houda Lakhdar has written the screenplay for the television series Al Hayat Saida. Its short ZahrallThe film, broadcast on TV5 Monde last year, was screened at the European Parliament in Brussels to represent women within the Moroccan film industry. Sofia Aissaoui has been writing for television since graduating from ESAV and has worked on projects for UNDP and UN Women. Her latest short film Windco-directed and written by her, is being screened in different venues and countries.
Both are at the artist residency that the Jiwar Creació i Societat Association has in Barcelona, thanks to the XABACA project, an international network against censorship of Arab women artists. The XABACA network aims to empower Arab women creators as a source of social transformation and defenders of rights through their artistic expression. This initiative fights against the creation and distribution of stereotypes about Arab women and is the result of the joint work of Novact, Al Fanar and Jiwar, with the collaboration of Casa Árabe and IeMed (Institut Europeu de la Mediterrànea).
This joint action in turn achieves networking within the associations that make up the Spanish Anna Lindh network to which the organisers and promoters of the initiative belong.
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