Fermín Cabanillas I Sevilla, (EFE).- Andalusian and Moroccan cinema made by women “have many more things similar than different”, just like the very societies where the productions take place, and this is one of the reasons for the meeting. Women filmmakers from both shores: Morocco-Andalusia’, which is held over two days in Seville.
Sonia Terrab, Moroccan writer, filmmaker and activist, explains it to EFE, who is one of the more than 20 film professionals in their different fields who are gathered in the Andalusian capital under the protection of the Tres Culturas Foundation.
There, like the rest of her colleagues, she highlights “how important it is that we meet and interact, and exchange on the many things we have in common.
And this, in addition, with the nuance pointed out by the Andalusian actress Teresa Arbolí, who, although she herself usually looks for films in the original version and enjoys it regardless of the country of origin, “it is very difficult for me to find Moroccan cinema”, and even He has reviewed the filmography of some of the participants in the meeting and does not remember having seen any of his films.
The common points of the Mediterranean woman
To try to reverse this trend, and even propose synergies for the future, filmmakers, producers, actresses, festival directors, writers and researchers meet, above all to share experiences and reflect on their role in the film industry.
Sonia Terrab has a very broad vision of this history, because her work revolves around the situation of women and youth in general in Moroccan society, and she is even the founder, together with the writer Leila Slimani, of the movement ‘ Moroccan Outlaws’ -known as the Moroccan Mee Too- for the decriminalization of individual liberties in Morocco, whose manifesto gathered more than 15,000 signatures when it was launched in September 2019.
For this reason, with the perspective that her work gives her, she remembers that “Mediterranean women have many things in common and we can learn from each other”, and she defends the importance of quotes like this “to have a feminine dialogue in cinema today”, in addition to the fact that “talking about cinema in the Mediterranean is having a local dialogue”.
And it is that the cinema, for her, is part of the “many things in culture and in history that unite us”, and Teresa Arbolí adds that “it is a pity that we do not have more contact with how close we are”, to the Do not forget that it is easier to see, in an Andalusian cinema, a German film than a Moroccan one.
Andalusia and Morocco relationship
The director of Tres Culturas, Concha de Santa Ana, recalls that cinema is an important part of the activity of this former Moroccan pavilion at Expo’92, even with a cycle dedicated to productions from this country for more than 15 years. , “and we have proposed this as a unique opportunity to continue deepening the relationship between Andalusia and Morocco.”
“Cinema gives us the opportunity to get to know the Mediterranean better from both shores and from plurality”, but the Seville meeting goes further, and Arbolí recalls that there is still a lot to be done for equality, something that is going “slowly but progressing”, and we must fight, for example, so that “after a certain age they continue to count on us”.
Remember that sometimes there are actresses who are “aged” to appear a certain age on screen, something that must be corrected in a world in which “there are more and more female directors or screenwriters, which are not too many, but each time there’s more.” EFE