Movie-Database: Movies

KILIKIS LA CITÉ DES HIBOUX

Credits

Name: KILIKIS LA CITÉ DES HIBOUX

Country: Marokko

Year of publication: 2018

Format: DCP

Color: color

Language : OF m. engl. UT

Duration: 99 Minuten

Direction: Alaoui, Azlarabe

Guest: Alaoui, Azlarabe

Abstract

The setting is Kafka-esque: an isolated fortress in the Atlas Mountains which in the 1990s is used by King Hassan II as a secret prison for his political opponents. But in this feature film we only see the guards and their families. “The fate of the prisoners is mirrored in their own dull daily lives,” the director explains. During the opening titles, he says, “I was there. I was eight years old. ‘Cops and robbers’ was the only childhood game that brought us together and our bedtime stories were whatever the guards’ children had overheard their fathers saying. A colourless childhood, which we have now grown out of so we can tell the world... not least through cinema, because this injustice must not be forgotten.” The closing credits feature a more hopeful quote by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda: “You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming.”