Cinema
A Door to the Sky
باب السماء مفتوح
Farida Benlyazid · 1988
Synopsis
Nadia, a young Franco-Moroccan woman who has lived in France for years, returns to Fez to be at the bedside of her dying father, in the large family house with its ornamented walls. At the funeral, the voice of Kirana, a woman who chants the Quran during ceremonies, strikes her like a revelation, and a friendship develops between them. Nadia decides to turn the house into a zawiya, a spiritual home open to rejected or homeless women, where women from all backgrounds sing, dance and talk, while her brother invokes inheritance law to sell the property.
Context
The Moroccan Cinema Centre credits the production to Hassan Daldoul, the cinematography to Georges Barsky and the editing to Moufida Tlatli; the cast includes Zakia Tahiri, Chaâbia Adraoui, Eva Saint-Paul and the filmmaker Ahmed Bouanani, who was also its art director. Restored digitally thanks to the Africa in Motion festival and a University of Exeter programme, the film was shown in 2022 at documenta in Kassel, where the Marrakesh space Le 18 made it one of the pillars of its programme, then at the Block Museum of Northwestern University.
Who it is for
A feature film of 100 to 107 minutes, in Moroccan Arabic and French; restored, it circulates at festivals and in universities.
Prizes and reception
Its director's first fiction feature; Le 18 and the Block Museum present it as a pioneering work of women's cinema in Morocco.
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