So what have I been doing for the last three days besides going stir crazy? I've been reading, researching, and working on my project, which led me down a rabbit hole of watching dozens of videos on YouTube about and by the Tamazighen, one specifically about the women, and a few about Fez and Morocco in general. Some were good, some not-so-good, for my purposes anyway, but I wanted to share the good ones with my Fulbright buds to save them some time down that rabbit hole later on! Having been cooped up in my hotel room for a large chunk of today, I don’t have any Tangier or Rabat sights and sounds to share out anyway!

The first movie I checked out is entitled Boutfounast (Owner of the Cow, 1992), and it caught my attention because Ibram El Guabli mentions it in his article “My Amazigh Indigeneity” as one of the first Amazigh films with actors speaking Amazigh, although I’m not sure which dialect they are using. I think Tamazight as they are in what looks like the Atlas mountains.

Here’s a brief synopsis:

A nocturnal and discreet bandit, M'haned Boutfounast decides to "settle down". He confesses his criminal history to his wife before starting a new honest life. One day, while going to sell his cow in the souk, he is attacked by thieves who rob him of his only good cow. M'haned Boutfounast decides to take his revenge by taking justice into his own hands. He takes as an acolyte his friend Bigha to hunt down the thieves and their leader, a certain Ba Hmad. It’s out of the question that these thugs continue to rage in the village of M'haned Boutfounast!

It has French subtitles with no option to change them to English, so I watched about 35 minutes of it struggling to understand what was going on with my very limited French, and then I zipped ahead to see how it ended. It’s light, humorous, and shows Amazigh village life and the relationship between husband and wife, but of course it’s a movie. Any hoot, I thought it was a keeper, especially for my French teaching friends in the group.

The second keeper is a film called Les Coeurs Brules (The Burned Hearts, 2007), and this is just one of many, many I came across while searching. It caught my eye because it is set in Fez and supposedly was available with English subtitles. Unfortunately, I have yet to find that version, but I persevered through the better part of one with French subtitles.

Here is a synopsis:

Amin, a Moroccan architect, returns from Paris to Fez because the uncle who raised him is dying. His re-integration into his native culture triggers bad memories of his childhood, but also opens new possibilities for friendship and romance. Amin’s problems reflect those of many North Africans, torn between a modern European lifestyle and a traditional homeland. Striking black & white cinematography of Fez and its environs.

I am going to do some more digging to see if I can find the version with English subtitles because I think my students would really enjoy this movie. A handsome leading man, an abusive father figure, and a good love story -- right up a teen’s alley and mine too. The best part is the backdrop of Fez, the Medina, and the way of life there, and that’s the piece I want them to get as we read about it in the novel The Map of Salt and Stars. The actors are speaking Arabic, I think, but I’m not positive if it’s Arabic or Darija. Again for my French speakers among us, this is worth checking out!

The third keeper in the dozen or so I watched is a documentary called Morocco’s Village Superwomen, and it does have English narration and English subtitles, yay! It’s produced by Al Jazeera English, and the Amazigh women featured are speaking for themselves, so I feel better about it not being a blatant example of cultural appropriation.

It’s about how difficult life is for these women living in rural villages in the Atlas mountains because their husbands have to leave home for months at a time to get work, and so the women are left to raise the children, take care of their homes, find food, prepare for winter, and just survive. It’s 45 minutes long, and this is one I will definitely use with my students to delve into Amazigh culture.

The last film I have to share is another documentary, again with English subtitles, that is entitled RIF 58-59 Break the Silence. It’s an hour and 16 minutes long and well worth the watch if you want to understand more fully the oppression the Tamazighen have been living under in contemporary times and what provoked some of it. As Tangier and Cap Spartel are part of the Rif, and one of our lecturers was from this region, I was intrigued. Before you watch it, I suggest reading this brief entry on the Rif’s history in Wikipedia to give you some context. There was a whole lot of political jockeying for control of this region between the Spanish, French, and fledgling Moroccan governments, and the Amazigh people of the Rif were caught right in the middle of it.