Film: Rock the Casbah 

This film, by Moroccan director Laila Marrakchi, is being screened at the Cineteca (Matadero Madrid) on three occasions.

It is summer in Tangier. A family comes together at their home for three days after the father’s death to share their memories and mourn his loss in accordance with Muslim tradition. They have left the beach behind and change their swimsuits for djellabas, meeting up in a display of mourning. Their emotions are highlighted even further, because this husband and father has left behind a family made up entirely of women.

The sparks begin to fly when Sofía flies in from New York after several years off in the distance. The youngest daughter has made a new life for herself as an actress in the United States, but she has always been given roles as a terrorist in American series. Her return provides an opportunity to close some unhealed wounds created with her sisters, because the order which had been maintained by the family patriarch was broken.

Amid laughter and tears, a sort of group hysteria leads each of these women to deal with certain realities existing inside the household into which they were born.

Laïla Marrakchi (Casablanca, 1975) is a filmmaker who achieved international fame as a result of the controversial film Marock (shown at Casa Árabe). On this occasion, Marrakchi invites viewers to discover the women of her culture from another perspective, displaying traditions which differ from those of the Western world.

The film screenings which form part of the “HouMa” (“Them”) project  will be taking place on the dates of July 17, 18 and 19 at the Cineteca (Matadero Madrid).

The “HouMa” (“Them”) event, conceived by FusiónCulturas, combines three forms of artistic expression in which the main role is played by Moroccan women: contemporary dance (“Madame Plaza,” by Bouchra Ouizguen); cinema (“Rock the Casbah,” by Laila Marrakchi) and art (“Patterns & Mobiles”). The events will be held from July 17 through 25 in Madrid and have been given the support of Matadero Madrid (Frinje15 Festival, Cineteca and Factoría Cultural) and that of Casa Árabe.

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