APATRIDE

Credits

Name: APATRIDE

Country: Marokko/Frankreich/Katar

Year of publication: 2018

Format: DCP

Color: color

Language : OF m. dt. UT

Duration: 94 Minuten

Direction: Narjiss Nejjar

Guest: Benzaouia, Ghalia

Abstract

Hénia is still a child when she and her father are deported from Algeria in 1975, along with 45,000 other Moroccan families. Her Algerian mother remains on the other side of the border, and her father dies shortly afterwards. Hénia’s papers disappear with her father, so she lives in Morocco alone and stateless. Her longing to return home to Algeria remains with her until her adult years. Day after day, the young woman looks from her house on the beach in Morocco across to the two flags that mark the border between Morocco and Algeria and which are guarded by border soldiers. With the hope of obtaining ID papers, Hénia agrees to marry an old widower. But once again she is a pawn for the interests of others and decides to take her fate into her own hands. The Maroccan filmmaker Narjiss Nejjar succeeded in creating a parable on patriachical structures and brutality of the post-colonial society in Marocco in her fifth feature that renounces dialogues over long periods and uses intensive pictures. (Source: Berlinale)