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The film «La mer au loin» (Across the Sea) by French-Moroccan director Saïd Hamich Benlarbi was screened on Sunday as part of the official competition of the 21st Marrakech International Film Festival (FIFM 2024), which is being held from November 29 to December 7 in the ochre city. It is one of 12 works supported by the Atlas Workshops, the program initiated by the festival in 2018, included in the selection of this grand event edition. The filmmaker presents his second feature film, a romance centered around Nour, a 27-year-old undocumented migrant in 1990s Marseille.
Brilliantly portrayed by Moroccan actor Ayoub Gretaa, the main character survives through small-scale trafficking until he crosses paths with Serge (Grégoire Colin), a policeman leading a paradoxical life, torn between the image of his profession and his turbulent family history.
Taken under Serge's wing, Nour delves into the complexities of the divide between the two shores of the Mediterranean, far from his hometown of Oujda. He observes the multifaceted lives of his hosts and the evolving realities of his fellow migrants, sometimes haunted by a past he desperately tries to escape and at other times holding tightly to his dreams despite the fatigue of exile.
Ph. FIFMPh. FIFM
Through this narrative, the film is situated at the crossroads of fiction and the reality of migration journeys of the 1990s, partially reflecting the director's own experience. Visibly moved during the presentation of his new cinematic opus, Saïd Hamich Benlarbi indeed recalled that this story was in a way his own as well, having left Morocco at the age of 11, thereby knowing the stigmas of family separation.
In the intimacy of past scars and distance
Merging real and imaginary, intimate and political, the filmmaker offers a historical fresco over a decade, from the early 1990s to the eve of a new millennium. We discover the fragmented world of Nour, but also the Marseille nightlife, the refuge of Moroccan and Algerian immigrants in the music of Cheb Hasni and raï at its golden age, as well as the personal struggles of Fadela (Rym Foglia), Noémie (Anna Mouglalis), and Houcine (Omar Boulakirba).
On screen, actor Ayoub Gretaa naturally embodies Nour, the main character he managed to portray in a cinematic performance worthy of the global seventh art. Often silent and deeply expressive, his acting brings all the film's emotionally powerful moments. Selected for a special screening at the 63rd Critics' Week at the Cannes Festival, in May 2024, the opus was acclaimed thanks to the dramatic performance of the young artist.
Ayoub Gretaa / Ph. FIFMAyoub Gretaa / Ph. FIFM
It goes without saying that this cinematic work does not leave one indifferent, painting a mixed picture of integration in the host country, questioning social, cultural, and economic issues, far from clichés and in an undeniably artistic language.
