4v291o

Watched on Sunday June 1, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday May 21, 2025.

Watched on Thursday May 15, 2025.

Watched on Saturday May 17, 2025.

Watched on Sunday May 18, 2025.

Watched on Tuesday May 13, 2025.

Watched on Monday May 12, 2025.

the second the film started and the credits were SUNG i knew i was about to experience a masterpiece ! love when pasolini goes slapstick. feels like the perfect companion piece to the earth as seen from the moon, which is maybe my fav pasolini ever !

also this movie inspired achouba’s taghounja so we have pasolini to thank for that too

Watched on Thursday April 17, 2025.

Watched on Saturday April 12, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday April 2, 2025.

annual birthday rendez-vous at the cinémathèque!

Watched on Monday March 24, 2025.

Watched on Friday March 21, 2025.

Watched on Friday March 21, 2025.

Watched on Friday March 21, 2025.

Watched on Friday March 21, 2025.

Watched on Friday March 21, 2025.

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Watched on Friday March 21, 2025.

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Watched on Friday March 21, 2025.

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Watched on Friday March 21, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday March 19, 2025.

Watched on Monday March 17, 2025.

Watched on Sunday March 16, 2025.

Watched on Sunday March 16, 2025.

Watched on Sunday March 16, 2025.

Watched on Sunday March 16, 2025.

Watched on Sunday March 16, 2025.

Watched on Sunday March 16, 2025.

Watched on Sunday March 16, 2025.

Watched on Sunday March 16, 2025.

Watched on Sunday March 16, 2025.

Watched on Saturday March 15, 2025.

Watched on Saturday March 15, 2025.

Watched on Saturday March 15, 2025.

Watched on Saturday March 8, 2025.

Watched on Monday March 3, 2025.

I mean … the swing scene ….

my god! Malas masters poetic beauty and paralyzing heartache like no other!
The soviet union really gave the arab world its best filmmakers (especially VGIK), just churning out one visionary after the other !

Watched on Tuesday February 11, 2025.

inconsolable from all the blue in the third act !

~director’s cut which means it’s the second night this week I spend 3+ hours in the theatre !! we’re sooo back~

Watched on Friday February 7, 2025.

Watched on Wednesday February 5, 2025.

My official list of the best Maghrebi cinema (local and diasporic) has to offer bc frankly I'm tired of the seemingly endless cycle of garbage being churned out recently. It's upsetting me and my homegirls. So here's to a return to form, to beauty, pageantry, moxie and capital R Risk!

An ode to my beloved accidental film historian and north star Ahmed Bouanani's posthumous book La Septième Porte which charted the history of Moroccan cinema from 1907 to 1986.

Disclaimer: This is by no means an exhaustive list as I've deliberately left out certain titles/filmmakers. This is a list based on my personal tastes/sensibilities which tend to be more on the fantastique/magic realism/oral history side of things. The list is evidently very Moroccan focused because Moroccan cinema is at the heart of my research/curatorial practice + I am Moroccan duh but if you want to plumb the depths of what Algerian cinema has to offer (past and present) look no further than the brilliant and tireless work conducted by Les Archives numériques du cinéma algérien!

Check notes for additional information regarding the conception/production/distribution and dissemination of these works, updated as I go along from multiple sources including the wealth of Maghrebi film magazines of the 70s !!

For now, go here if you'd like to learn more: www.instagram.com/dhakiracollective/

Some titles that are not on Letterboxd yet but are worth mentioning:
-Ibn al-Ghaba / L'enfant de la jungle (1941-1943) by then 14 year old Mohamed Osfour who is considered the father and pioneer of Moroccan cinema.
-Amok, l'invincible (1954) by Mohamed Osfour
-Les plongeurs du désert / The Desert Divers / Ghattasun
al-sahra (1953): The first Algerian film by the pioneer of Algerian cinema / renowned cinematographer Tahar Hannache. Restoration of the film is currently underway.
-Itinéraire singulier d’un cinéaste algérien en à l’époque coloniale (2012) by Ouahmi Ould-Braham
-Un jour de paix en Algérie: le temps d’une image (1964) by Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina (Algeria)
-Le Cadavre Encerclé (1963) by Kateb Yacine (Algeria)
-La Goutte (1982) by Belkacem Hadjadj (Algeria)
-Latif Lahlou's rural trilogy: Et ils cultivèrent la betterave (1963), Sin Agafaye (1967) and Du côté de la Tassaoute (1968) (Morocco)
-La Longue Journée /The Breadwinner (1969) by Mohamed Abbazi (Morocco) (long considered to be "lost" and/or "unfinished", the film rushes were found but the sound is no more so it's just silent footage but still very VERY beautiful and deserves a spot in the canon certainly)
-Sentiers perdus (1971) by Abdellah Bayahya (Morocco)
-The Killers / al-Qatiluun (1978) by Mohamed Abouelouakar (Russia) (his graduate film from VGIK based on an adaptation of Hemingway's story of the same title)
-The City of Memory / Madinat al-Thikrah (1977) by Mohamed Abouelouakar (a short documentary about his home town Marrakech)
-La fillette et le papillon (1980) by Azzeddine Meddour (Algeria)
-La Moitié du ciel d'Allah (1995) by Djamila Sahraoui (Algeria)
-Beau Geste (2009) by Yto Barrada (Morocco)
-Wacław (1969) by Abdelkader Lagtaâ (Poland) (made during his studies at Łódź Film School)
-But Hope Is of a Different Colour (1972) by Abdelkader Lagtaâ (Poland) (made during his studies at Łódź Film School)
-Amghar (1968) by Mostafa Derkaoui (For his first short student film in Lódź (a silent 4-minute fiction film), Derkaoui focused on the history of Amazigh Moroccan resistance, and shot a historical re-enactment in the Polish countryside. Abdelkader Lagtaa acted in the film whilst Derkaoui’s brother, Abdelkrim was behind the camera. For this film, Derkaoui was inspired by a book lent to him before his departure by fellow Moroccan filmmakers, Ahmed Bouanani and Mustapha Khayat)
-People from the cellar (1969) by Mostafa Derkaoui (Poland) (student film made during his studies at Łódź Film School)
-L'ombre du guardien (1985) by Saïd Souda (Morocco)

• Hadda

  “The village stands in an arid landscape. (...) But through the mystifying veil, one slowly discovers a life with a complex fabric. (...) Hamid, the young heir, returns to the village of his birth in order to recover his possessions and land. (...) Hamid rapes Hadda, a young girl, in an atmosphere of drought. An act that will lead to the epidemic.” Mohamed Abouelouakar

  Perhaps my favourite Moroccan film of all time, it was my first encounter with a Moroccan cinema (besides Bouanani's) that is formally, visually and narratively steeped in a singular storytelling language informed by a rich national trove of oral histories, fairytales, mysticism and popular poetry. The film certainly has a painterly quality to it as Abouelouakar's visual treatment is so stunning and emotionally charged: a series of tableaux vivants with sparse dialogue laced with poetry. Reminded me a lot of Walerian Borowczyk (a fellow painter-filmmaker)

  The film’s unparalleled aesthetics, mythical lyricism and poetic language earned Abouelouakar comparisons to Soviet Armenian filmmaker Parajanov. Incidentally, Abouelouakar (although originally a painter) trained as a filmmaker at the VGIK in Moscow (notable alumni include Tarkovsky, Parajanov and Sudan's Suliman Mohamed Ibrahim Elnour). Enrolled in Sergei Gerasimov's workshop with classmates Natalia Bondarchuk, Nikolai Gubenko, Sergei Nikonenko, Natalia Belokhvostikova, Nikolai Eremenko, Natalia Arinbasarova

  Of his filming technique/philosophy, in an interview with journalist Sergei Feklyunin in 2004, Mohamed Abouelouakar explained: “I always work with characters. I find people I want, I shoot them, and then professional actors give voice to them. I kind of give the sculpture, and the actor gives the sound. Some people I bring from the city to the location, others I recruit on the spot. I have this approach: in order for the character to bring out all these dramatic depths, he has to be properly dressed, properly made up and find the right backdrop. Then there's no need for any acting. You just have to put the composition together. That's the artist's approach.”

• A Door to the Sky
• The Four Sources
• The Damned Son

  Mohamed Osfour is considered the “pioneer” of Moroccan cinema because he was the first to experiment with very small format moving images, such as 8 mm and 9 mm, making movies as a youth with his friends in the forests.

  His first short film Ibn al-Ghaba / L’Enfant de la Jungle (1941-1943) (made with some of his friends, based on Tarzan movies and shot in the forest of Casablanca, Sidi Abd al-Rahman) screened in the courtyard of the cafe Si Rabah in Derb Ghallef in Casablanca. The screening came with an accompanying boxing match to attract the public and justify the ission price. The power for the projector came from a bike dynamo. This episode constitutes the first screening of a film made in Morocco by a Moroccan.

  The first 16-mm film was made in 1949 by Ahmed Mesnaoui, who then sold Osfour a 16-mm camera so Osfour could continue in the 1950s making films in 16 mm. No Moroccans were independent directors of feature films at the time, which made Osfour a real pioneer because he was producing independently and showing his films in cafes and neighborhoods.

  In 1957 he made L’Enfant Maudit, about a young boy who is mistreated by his parents and grows up to be bad, and in the end kills his fiancée. After several short films, he also made a feature in 1968, a Moroccan Western, Le Trésor Infernal, considered one of Morocco’s only fantasy films, with fights, pursuits, and technical feats to combine all the popular genres together into one film: Western, Zorro, Robin Hood, karate, Hindi, and Egyptian melodrama. Through the years Osfour also became known for his cinema inventions in camera equipment and problem solving for special techniques; he worked with numerous foreign crews filming in the country both as an extra and a techinician.

  Never studying abroad, he learned all his techniques from watching films, practicing making films, and working in the industry.

• Brahim

  Filmed at the dawn of independence in 1956, Brahim ou Le collier de beignets sparks a debate between film historians in Morocco.

  Ahmed Fertat its to hesitating when it comes to the question of a first film; while he strongly emphasizes Ousfour's pioneering role, he nevertheless makes his choice clear: “I think we need to rehabilitate a great film and a great filmmaker, namely Jean Fléchet and his film Le collier de beignets (1957)”.

  He is ed in this approach by one of the pioneers of Moroccan cinema, Latif Lahlou: Certainly,” he says, ”the director's nationality is a determining factor in a film's identity, and in this sense, it's perfectly legitimate to consider Mohamed Ousfour as the author of the first Moroccan film...A setting, or the location of the film's story, or even native characters, are not enough to forge a film's identity...However, I think a filmmaker like Jean Fléchet deserves to be rehabilitated as a historical figure in Moroccan cinema. His film Brahim, ou Le collier de beignets (1957) is so steeped in local culture that its Moroccanness is beyond doubt."

  A legal argument in favor of Latif Lahlou's thesis is that Brahim was produced by the Moroccan Cinematographic Center.

• Traces

  The film marks another sad chapter in the history of Moroccan cinema.
  Hamid Benani, Mohamed Sekkat, Ahmed Bouanani and Mohamed
  Abderrahman Tazi, classmates at the Parisian film school IDHEC, came
  together to found the production company Sigma 3 for this film. Wechma was made in collective fashion (Sekkat served as producer, Bouanani as assistant director and editor, Tazi as director of photography). Bouanani’s Al-Sarab was meant to be the collective’s next production, but Benani alienated his collaborators by claiming all the glory for himself. The group broke up and Bouanani had to wait a decade before being able to complete his own project.

  "After Wechma was completed and shown, what had been a collective effort began to be seen as basically the work of ‘Monsieur’ Hamid Benani. [...] The rest of us grew increasingly frustrated with this; we felt our wings were being clipped. [...] you have to say that Benani bears his share of the blame. No doubt he didn’t want to pull the covers to his side at the outset, but when the press and the media put him on the spot he didn’t explain how things were. So the rest of us were very discouraged and lost the enthusiasm needed to continue in this manner. [...] The effect was societal, in fact, because the unhappy end to this experience had the effect of completely eliminating the collective spirit in filmmaking." Mohamed Abderrahman Tazi

  In Ali Essafi's Crossing the Seventh Gate, Ahmed Bouanani further revealed that the creative contributions of his wife Naima Bouanani (namely as costume and set designer) were also erased from the official narrative surrounding the making and production of Wechma. Bouanani also credits Tayeb Saddiki, who is said to have helped brainstorm the film's title.

• Tale of an Encounter

  The film constitutes part of an informal trilogy (including Les Enfants du vents 1981 and Les Enfants des néons 1990) occupied with a unifying, very personal vision of childhood and a concern with silence, throughout which Tsaki sets the stylistic tone that permeates all his work by using virtually no dialogue and eschewing voice-over comment.

  Tale of an Encounter is also, for the director, a comment on modern society: ‘the more new technology facilitates exchange, whether it is air travel or the transmission of an image that can be seen simultaneously in Montpellier and Algiers, the more I have the impression that it separates us’. Source: Brahim Tsaki, interview in Actes des Septièmes Rencontres de Montpellier

  At the 9th edition of FESPACO (1985), the film was awarded the grand prize, Étalon d’or de Yennenga presented by Thomas Sankara.

• The Cork
• Omar Gatlato
• Taghounja

  Abdou Achouba’s ode to Sufi poet Abderrahman el Majdoub’s Qasidas starring Larbi Batma and Omar Sayed, two of the of Nass El Ghiwane, who will also compose the film’s soundtrack. The film charts a quest for identity by two characters: one, a lyricist and musician (Batma), who strives to immerse himself in his country’s rich cultural heritage; the other, a young boy, who looks at the world around him through the eyes of innocence. Bringing to mind Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Uccellacci e Uccellini (1966), to whom the film is dedicated.

  While classified as fiction, Taghounja is, strictly speaking, a docu-fiction. However, its approach is markedly different from that of Transes (Maanouni’s essay film about Nass El Ghiwane). Instead of a biopic, it dramatizes the group’s lyrics, sometimes literally, within the sociopolitical life of the time. The parallel wanderings of the musician and the child mirroring the state of affairs of late 70s Morocco, a country still alienated by colonialism, neo-colonialism and the perversion of certain customs and traditions.

  Moroccan film critic and Abdou’s former philosophy teacher Noureddine Saïl said in his weekly radio program, Écran noir, “You may like or dislike Taghounja, but you have to it that the film includes certain shots that are on a par with works of art.”

...plus 117 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

some of my favs + ones I want to watch

• The Little Mermaid
• Beauty and the Beast
• The Ninth Heart
• Three Wishes for Cinderella
• The Girl on the Broomstick
• The Scarlet Flower
• The Little Mermaid
• The Feather Fairy
• Princess Goldilocks
• The Terribly Sad Princess

...plus 21 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

an attempt at rounding up my favs

• Four Nights of a Dreamer
• Céline and Julie Go Boating
• The Florida Project
• The Day I Became a Woman
• Elevator to the Gallows
• Zazie dans le Métro
• Blue
• Ms .45
• Blue Velvet
• Beau Travail

...plus 85 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

Full program of films curated for the 2nd edition of NAQFF, powered by Dhakira Collective! Free in-person and online screenings, talks and more !

www.naqff.com
cinemapublic.ca/en/series/naqff2023-en/

• A Little for My Heart and a Little for My God: A Muslim Women's Orchestra

  Opening night screening.

• Bright Heart

  part of the Queer Utopias shorts program 

• Daughters of Destiny

  Part of the Queer Utopias shorts program.

• Vénus Rétrograde

  Part of the Queer Utopias shorts program.

• Out of the Blue

  part of the Queer Utopias shorts program 

• Man of Ashes

  Part of the archival strand of the festival titled “Archive Fever”

• Baba

  Part of the Now You See Me, Now You Don’t shorts program.

• Dogfriend

  Part of the Now You See Me, Now You Don’t shorts program.

• My Girl Friend

  Part of the Now You See Me, Now You Don’t shorts program.

• Fangs

  Part of the archival strand of the festival titled “Archive Fever”.

favorite genre!!! Inspired by recent readings on the French fantastique.
I'll post notes later.

• Beauty and the Beast
• Donkey Skin
• Céline and Julie Go Boating
• Duelle
• Noroît
• The Little Mermaid
• Valerie and Her Week of Wonders
• The Blood of a Poet
• Orpheus
• The Bride of Darkness

...plus 51 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Brigadoon
• The Boy Friend
• Donkey Skin
• The Young Girls of Rochefort
• Golden Eighties
• One Sings, the Other Doesn't
• Silence... We're Rolling

have a weird obsession with nuns in film especially unhinged nuns lol. this is a list of my fav on-screen nun performances 

ms.45 isn't a nun film but I added it to the list for obvious reasons.

• The Devils
• Dark Habits
• Successive Slidings of Pleasure
• Behind Convent Walls
• The Nun
• Viridiana
• Killer Nun
• Ms .45
• Angels of Sin
• Mother Joan of the Angels

...plus 5 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Autumn Sonata
• Happy as Lazzaro
• Paris, Texas
• Lilya 4-ever
• The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
• Nights of Cabiria
• Wanda
• Beanpole
• The Ascent
• Frontier of Dawn

...plus 5 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Tokyo!
• Holy Motors
• The Pleasure of Love in Iran
• One Sings, the Other Doesn't
• Eden and After
• N. Took the Dice
• Carne
• I Stand Alone
• Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me
• Twin Peaks: The Missing Pieces

...plus 16 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

a list of some chaotic but really good films I've been watching/revisiting recently (or plan on watching soon) sometimes solo, other times with my friends on zoom. criteria seems to be: v gay/horny/fantastical/weird etc lol.

• The Wild Boys
• Apocalypse After
• Jessica Forever
• You and the Night
• The Art of Love
• Dorian Gray in the Mirror of the Yellow Press
• Islands
• Knife+Heart
• Lady Oscar
• Freak Orlando

...plus 13 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

• Perceval
• Blanche
• Lancelot of the Lake
• The Devil's Envoys
• The Pied Piper
• Donkey Skin
• The Decameron
• The Canterbury Tales

Liste des films faisant partie de la programmation estivale intitulée "Femmes Femmes" organisée par la Cinémathèque Québécoise. Du 2 Juillet jusqu'au 26 Août 2018.

Autres (pas disponibles sur Letterboxd) :
+ Deux Actrices - Micheline Lanctôt (1993)
+ Londeleau- Isabelle Hayeur (1988)
+ La Bête de Foire - Isabelle Hayeur (1992)
+ Beginning and Ending - Barbara Sternberg (2008)
+ After Nature - Barbara Sternberg (2008)
+ Children Dancing Girl Rocking On Porch - Zora Neale Hurston (1927-1929)
+ Childrens Games Baptism - Zora Neale Hurston (1927-1929)
+ Kossula - Zora Neale Hurston (1927-1929)
+ Logging - Zora Neale Hurston (1927-1929)

• His Mother's Hymn
• Along the Coast
• La beauté même
• Le jour de congé
• Le Clitoris
• Molière
• Loving Couples
• A Scream from Silence
• The Hitch-Hiker
• Cléo from 5 to 7

...plus 105 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.