Moroccan cinema shines in Strasbourg with six landmark films

Moroccan cinema will take center stage in Strasbourg from June 3 to 21, with screenings of six films, «a selection designed to capture the energy that has defined Moroccan productions in recent decades», according to the organizers.

The eclectic program is being presented by the Cinémathèque de Tanger as part of the carte blanche series «Fragments of Morocco», at the invitation of the regional digital film archive Mémoire des images réanimées d’Alsace (RIMA).

The lineup notably includes the first screening in France of «Mirage», the only feature film by the late Ahmed Bouanani, filmmaker, poet, novelist and illustrator, produced in 1979.

Also on the program are the documentaries «The Mother of All Lies» by Asmae El Moudir, released in 2023, and «Five Eyes» by Karim Debbagh (2025). On the fiction side, Moroccan and Strasbourg cinephiles will be able to discover, or rediscover, «Casanegra» (Nour-Eddine Lakhmari, 2008), as well as «Headbang Lullaby» (Hicham Lasri, 2017) and «El Batalett» (Dalila Ennadre, 2000).

For Malika Chaghal and Amaal Meftouh Ezzeyani, respectively vice president and operations manager of the Cinémathèque de Tanger, the selected films «are those with which Moroccan audiences deeply identify, works that marked a turning point in Moroccan cinema, that made history, and that traveled far more by word of mouth than on foreign screens. That is their paradox: essential in Morocco, almost invisible elsewhere, absent from international distribution networks».

In addition, the carte blanche program «Fragments of Morocco» introduces the project «What Became of the Tirailleurs? Alsace-Morocco: Images, Memories and Narratives», which aims to deepen awareness of the historical ties between Alsace and Morocco through the collection, digitization and promotion of private archives in Strasbourg and Tangier, according to a statement.