The Transnational Trajectories of Moroccan Filmmakers: Film Training between Socialist Poland and Postcolonial France in the 1960s and 1970s
Résumé
Soon after Morocco gained independence in 1956, a handful of young Moroccans were sent to study filmmaking abroad, to postcolonial France and socialist Poland in the 1960s-70s. The first part of the article provides an overview of the filmmakers' trajectories, it examines the connections they established with Eastern and Western countries since the 1950s and delves into the students' everyday lives and work abroad. The second and third parts focus on their political, cultural, artistic, multinational and third-worldly experiences as students during the 1960s and 1970s, comparing their training in Poland and France. The last part will explore the various ways in which these experiences influenced and enriched the new Moroccan cinema that the pioneer filmmakers imagined and sometimes (but not always) created. This article maintains that Moroccan national, postcolonial cinema cannot be understood and interpreted without considering these transnational origins and inspirations. Indeed, even though the actual effects on Moroccan cinema are not so obvious, given that Moroccan filmmakers, particularly those trained in Poland, were long prevented from working freely and heavily censored, one cannot understand their projects, mind-set, trajectories, interactions, friendships and collaborations, as well as their aesthetical and political choices and research, without taking into account this Moroccan history from beyond the borders.