Patience, patience t’iras au paradis !

85 minutes, 2015
Director: Hadja LAHBIB (Belgium)
Production Company: Les Passeurs de Lumière, Clair-obscur Productions, RTBF, Arte (Belgium)

 

In the 1960’s, thousands of North Africans came to work in Belgium. Among them, women who had left everything behind to follow a man to an unknown land.
“Patience, patience, t’iras au paradis!” is the catch-phrase repeated a thousand times to help these women put up with their lives without complaint.
50 years later, the taste for emancipation is taking over. They are incredibly happy, capable of deeply uninhibited self-mockery. This film accompanies them in their many discoveries, by the simplicity of their ballads, the warmth of their femininity and humour.

Hadja LAHBIB
Journalist, film-maker and presenter, Hadja LAHBIB is known to the general public as one of the faces of RTBF. She presents RTBF’s TV news as well as two cultural programmes on Arte Belgique. For many years she has travelled the world, now she focuses on culture and directing.
“Patience, patience, t’iras au paradis!” is her third documentary, after “Afghanistan. Le choix des femmes” (2007) and “Le cou et la tête” (2008).

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PIRATES OF SALÉ

78 minutes, 2014
Réalisation : Rosa ROGERS (Royaume-Uni) et Merieme ADDOU (Maroc)
Production : Redbird Productions (Royaume-Uni)

In the town of Salé, on what used to be Morocco’s pirate coast, a new generation of pirates set off with the county’s first professional circus. The Shems’y Circus is next to the poorest slums, and every year hundreds of young people go to the auditions there, looking for a different future.
The documentary “Pirates of Salé” follows four of them who are learning to live independently, to speak freely, to defy tradition and embrace a concept totally foreign to them: artistic freedom.

Rosa ROGERS has made several documentaries, many for Channel 4 and the BBC. Her films include: “The Greatest Show on Earth”, about a deaf dancer in the Rio de Janeiro carnival; “Dragon People”, the journey of a young photographer in today’s China; “Back to Bombay”, in which a young English woman with Indian roots sets off for her first visit to her family in India; “Bangladesh – Who will Pay?”; “Pirates of Salé”, about the Shems’y Circus; and “Casablanca Calling” about the first female imams in Morocco.

Born in Morocco, Merieme ADDOU studied law at the Mohammed V University. She lives and works in Rabat as a correspondent for Radio D-W. She is also a producer with the Moroccan production company Camino Media. She has worked as correspondent for Kuwait TV and Al Jazeera International, and as a producer for ADTV, Qatar TV, BBC 2 (“The Changing Face of Islam”), BBC Radio 4, Time Magazine, the Financial Times, BBC World, SABC, National Geographic Magazine, Fox News, CNN, and Bloomberg. She produced a documentary for national Moroccan television about Orson Welles and his relationship with the town of Essaouira.
“Pirates of Salé” is her first documentary as director.

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LES ENFANTS DE L’OVALE

55 minutes, 2012
Direction : Grégory FONTANA (France) and Rachid OUJDI (France)
Production : Comic Strip Production (France), Images Plus Télévision Vosges (France)

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The arrival of rugby football in a small Moroccan town caused a strange, oval revolution amongst its inhabitants. Forgotten by everyone, these men and women whose daily life is little more than a struggle to survive, found a dignity and even a hope for the future of their children in the sport. The area of cultivated grass, in the middle of nowhere, came about through the energy of local kids. All these efforts are due to the dynamism of Papa Ali and Papa Hassan, both former rugby players brought up in working class districts who teach children the values ​​of living together though the rules of the sport. The film shows us the boys and the girls whose families have been able to overcome their prejudices so they can play together on the field. All now hope that the unique experience of “Les Enfants de l’ovale” will bring about a change in the Moroccan society.

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QUIVIR

QUIVIR
58 minutes, 2014
Direction : MANUTRILLO (Sapin)
Production : MANUTRILLO (Spain)

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Some are Andalusian, others Moroccan, these two communities of cork producers are separated by 150 km, and the Strait of Gibraltar. On one side Europe; on the other Africa. But despite the miles and the cultural differences there are many more similarities than they imagine. They share an identity derived from a vital relationship with these Mediterranean forests, without which such spaces would be in serious danger of disappearing.

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LA FEMME A LA CAMERA

LA FEMME A LA CAMERA
60 minutes, 2012
Direction : Karima ZOUBIR (Morocco)
Production : Les Films de Demain (Morocco)

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“La Femme à la caméra” is the bittersweet story of Khadija, a young illiterate Moroccan divorcee who, despite strong resistance from her family and her environment, is determined to ensure her independence by working as a videographer for weddings.
With the wedding season in full swing in Casablanca, we follow Khadija in her comings and goings between the family’s flat, where the tension is palpable, and the world of hope and light – the wedding parties she films.
A tale full of risk, “The woman with the camera” takes us into the world of these young divorced women who want to forge a social space of their own, without hurting or offending anyone. But can they?

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DÉSÉQUILIBRE

54 minutes, 2013
Direction : Julien GAERTNER (France)
Production : Jem Productions (France), France Télévisions (France), 2M (Maroc)

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Like all his family, Younes was born an acrobat. Today the head of Tangier’s Groupe Acrobatique, he prepares a new show, “Azimut”, with the stage director Aurélien Bory.
But between his family life in the Tangiers medina and his responsibilities during the rehearsals, Younes begins to feel his career is reaching its end. So he looks for a new balance between these two worlds, a search which takes him on the traces of the legendary acrobat, Sidi Ahmed Ou Moussa.

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LE THE OU L’ELECTRICITE

LE THÉ OU L’ELECTRICITÉ
93 minutes, 2012
Director : Jérôme LE MAIRE (Belgium)
Production : Iota Production (Belgium)

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The arrival of electricity in an isolated, landlocked village in the heart of the Moroccan High Atlas. For more than 3 years, season after season, the director patiently reveals how the web of change is closing inexorably on the inhabitants of Ifri. We watch the arrival of a pitiless modernity to which the village will be connected.

Born in 1969, Jérôme Le Maire is a director, writer and cameraman. After studying Journalism and Communication in Brussels, he trained as a director at Louvain-la-Neuve’s Institut des Arts de Diffusion. He has directed several short drama films and documentaries including “Où est l’amour dans la palmeraie ?” (2007), “Un jour, une vie” (2004) and “Volter ne m’intéresse pas” (2003). His feature film, “Le Grand Tour” was selected for the Rotterdam International Festival, the Cannes Film Festival in the section ACID, and the Namur International Festival of Francophone Film. In Belgium it was given theatrical release in 2011.

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