To Know the Arab Terrain - curated films by Ala' Younis

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The Film

The idea for this video was conceived at the end of an afternoon in Nador (Morocco) at the house of the artist’s parents where a very strong wind blew the linen on the washing line. It suddenly appeared to the artist as though a striking crowd was trying to go out of its way; a static article became alive, free. In the film we see the dance-like movement of the linen fight against the wind, which can be seen as a metaphor for those who search to escape their condition that is determined by their history. Nador is a city of transit, the border that separates Africa from Europe, therefore serving as a destination for a large number of sub-Saharan African immigrants who arrive with a dream of a new start. Most of them settle down in a city geographically separated from Europe by a thread of an indispensable border.

The Filmmaker

Fadma Kaddouri (born in Rif Mountain, lives and works in Grenoble) is a self-taught artist. Her photographs and videos often start as travelogues. These works bear witness to the position of the artist and her vision of the interior and exterior and its movement between various segments of Moroccan society: family, community, and dual identity. Her productions result from a history that, whether lived or imagined, lies between reality and fiction. Despite its absence, the female body is represented in the spaces she explores, as is the Rif, a region in the north of Morocco, which is also very present in her artistic and literary experiments.

Selected filmography: Rideaux (2006), Brussels Nador: Signs of the Hand (2007), and Cuisine (2009).