Morocco during French colonial rule: Mohamed is one of the legions of rural poor dependent on handouts. One day, he finds a bundle of banknotes in a sack of flour he humbly accepted and dragged home. Mohamed sets off for the city of Salé in order to exchange the unexpected windfall. Yet the money turns out to be more of a curse than a blessing: No matter whom he turns to, no one is willing to believe a ragamuffin like him.
Ahmed Bouanani
A Moroccan filmmaker and poet born in 1938 in Casablanca and died in 2011 in Demnate. He studied film at the Institut des hautes études cinématographiques (IDHEC) in Paris. He directed short films such as ‘Tarfaya ou La marche d’un poète’ (1966), ‘Six et douze’ (1968), ‘Mémoire 14’ (1971) and ‘Les quatre sources’ (1977) before founding the production company Sigma 3 alongside Hamid Benani, Mohamed Abderrahman Tazi and Mohamed Sekkat. In 1980, he directed ‘Mirage’, his only feature-length fiction film, and in 2017 the Berlinale dedicated a retrospective to him within its Forum section, featuring several of his restored films under the title ‘Autour de Bouanani – Another Moroccan Cinema’.In addition to directing his own films, he also worked as an editor and screenwriter for other Moroccan directors. He wrote ‘The Seventh Gate: A History of Cinema in Morocco from 1907 to 1986’, which was published posthumously in 2020 by his daughter.
DIRECTOR
Ahmed Bouanani
SCREENPLAY
Ahmed Bouanani
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Abdellah Bayahia
EDITOR
Ahmed Bouanani
SOUND
Yahia Bouabdesslam
MUSIC
Groupe Image
PRODUCTION
Mohamed Belekziz
PRODUCTION COMPANY
Centre Cinématographique Marocain, Basma Productionsmirag
