{"id":252168,"date":"2019-07-16T07:00:30","date_gmt":"2019-07-16T10:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/?p=252168"},"modified":"2019-07-15T19:29:34","modified_gmt":"2019-07-15T22:29:34","slug":"north-africa-has-an-established-film-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/north-africa-has-an-established-film-industry\/","title":{"rendered":"North Africa has an established film industry"},"content":{"rendered":"

S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 The North African countries have strong and established film industries, with a great number of distribution spaces and viewers, which is made easier by the outreach of the Arabic language. That is what the African Film Festival cocurator Beatriz Leal said during a debate about the Arab-African film industry last Saturday after the screening of the movie Sofia at Cinesesc<\/a> in S\u00e3o Paulo. The researcher Alesandra Meleiro also participated in the debate. The other curator of the show is Ana Camila Esteves.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrench colonies until the 1960s, [some] North African countries have similar traits regarding film production that set them apart from other African countries but are still heavily anchored by both African and European financial support,\u201d said Meleiro. However, the Arab countries of the Gulf have increasingly financed African movies, Leal pointed out.<\/p>\n

Out of the Sub-Saharan countries, the South African and Nigerian industry (known as Nollywood) are the highlights. \u201cThe other African countries have very small productions,\u201d said Leal.<\/p>\n

More than half of the movies in the African Film Festival are directed by women, with different themes. \u201cThey are all very beautiful themes that we wanted to address, and it\u2019s curious that it\u2019s not necessary that a woman talk just about female themes and vice-versa. The other non-Arab movies of the festival also show that,\u201d said Leal.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
L to R, Alessandra Meleiro, Ana Camila Esteves, Beatriz Leal, and Jusciele Oliveira<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The curator pointed out that the African productions financed by European countries usually had to film at least part of the project in Europe. \u201cThere were many [African] movies about traveling, and now they are there \u2013 the European productions are allowing everything is to be filmed in the African country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

An example of triangular production is the movie Sofia, filmed in Morocco by the Moroccan filmmaker Meryem Benm\u2019Barek but financed by France and Qatar. For Leal, the geopolitical issue in the movies is very important. \u201cSouth-South cooperation is more important than never right now,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

According to Meleiro, over 150 movies are produced in Brazil every year and roughly half of them aren\u2019t even screened in movie theaters. \u201cThe distribution issue makes it hard for the movies to reach the audience. Maybe it was necessary to invest more in this part of the process.\u201d The researcher said the African film industry has grown over the last ten years and has caught the attention of festivals in the continent and around the world.<\/p>\n

The African Film Festival<\/a> is produced by SESC and Ana Camila Comunica\u00e7\u00e3o e Cultura and runs till Wednesday (17). After S\u00e3o Paulo, the show goes on to Salvador at Circuito Saladearte<\/a> in September and Porto Alegre at Cinemateca Capit\u00f3lio<\/a> in October.<\/p>\n

Sofia<\/strong><\/p>\n

Meryem Benm’Barek\u2019s first feature filme, \u201cSofia\u201d is set in Casablanca and tells the story of a twenty-years-old who only discover she\u2019s pregnant when she starts feeling the contractions and her water breaks during a family lunch. She suffers from pregnancy denial, a psychological condition where the woman doesn\u2019t know she\u2019s pregnant and doesn\u2019t even starts showing.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Scene of the movie \u201cSofia\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As if the complexity of an unexpected pregnancy followed by a delivery wasn’t enough, the Moroccan law forbids sexual relations outside marriage under penalty of one year in prison (Article 490 of the Moroccan Penal Code). The hospital that receives her gives her 24 hours for her to provide the father\u2019s documentats before reporting the crime to the authorities.<\/p>\n

During the debate, Meleiro and Leal talked about the multilingualism in Morocco as a way of social stratification. The movie shows that those in the country who speak French well are usually from a higher, more privileged class (such as Sofia\u2019s aunt and cousin), have access to study and trips to other countries, while those who come from more poor households only speak Arabic (the fianc\u00e9 Omar and his family \u2013 his mother isn\u2019t even alphabetized) and, in some cases, the Berber, which is also an official language.<\/p>\n

The filmmaker herself is an expatriate, had access to other languages and cultures, lived and studied in France and Belgium. Barek is 34 and, before \u201cSofia,\u201d directed five short movies. \u201cThis trait of the director\u2019s background is common among other directors of the festival. Most of them are expatriates that had opportunities,\u201d Meleiro said.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Poster of the movie \u2018Sofia\u2019<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The gender issue and the power of the social patriarchy in the country are the movie\u2019s background, Leal pointed out. For her, the intersectionality of classes is the main point, since the fianc\u00e9 (played by Hamza Khafif), from a lower class, accepts to marry her to help his family. \u201cSofia<\/em> also talks about very fragile masculinities within a very complex state; the man is learning to reshape himself,\u201d Leal said.<\/p>\n

Played by the actress Maha Alemi, Sofia must make difficult choices in very delicate situations. A viewer commented during the chat, \u201cSofia has an unfair attitude under a society that is unfair to her.\u201d For the festival\u2019s production assistant Jusciele Oliveira, the movie shows that \u201cthe contemporary game is to know how to deal.\u201d \u201cSofia\u201d also features the Moroccan actor Faouzi Bensa\u00efdi<\/a>, who plays the main character\u2019s father, and the Belgian daughter of a Moroccan father and Spanish mother Lubna Azabal<\/a>, who plays her aunt.<\/p>\n

Intimate and family issues, social and gender drama, Eurocentric and Arab-Muslim worldviews. All these are present in \u201cSofia.\u201d<\/p>\n

Translated by Guilherme Miranda<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bruna Garcia\/ANBA<\/div>\n
Press Release<\/div>\n
Press Release<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Debate about the production in the region took place at the African Film Festival. The feature film \u2018Sofia,\u2019 directed by the Moroccan filmmaker Meryem Benm\u2019Barek, was part of the program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2305,"featured_media":252130,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[9908,9232,5083,9910,6810,2766,9912,9558,32761,9909,9598,9911],"class_list":{"0":"post-252168","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture","8":"tag-african-cinema","9":"tag-african-film-festival","10":"tag-arab-cinema","11":"tag-cinesesc-en","12":"tag-franca-en","13":"tag-france","14":"tag-moroccan-cinema-en","15":"tag-morocco-en","16":"tag-mostra-de-cinemas-africanos-en-2","17":"tag-movie-industry","18":"tag-qatar-en","19":"tag-sofia-en"},"wps_subtitle":"Debate about the production in the region took place at the African Film Festival. The feature film \u2018Sofia,\u2019 directed by the Moroccan filmmaker Meryem Benm\u2019Barek, was part of the program.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2305"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}