MARRAKECH, MOROCCO-The hash-trail metropolis that inspired Crosby, Stills, and Nash's "Marrakesh Express" is now host to a world-class film festival. Strict laws have nearly eliminated the lucrative drug trade in the medina, while the western (and Western) section of the city, where the third edition of the Marrakech International Film Festival took place last month, has boomed.
The most provocative movie at this year's festival, Zaman, the Man
> From the Reeds, was a small gem from Iraq that French-based Iraqi
director Amer Alwan finished just three months before the Coalition
of the Willing marched in. The film's spare style and linear story
line belie the controversy it generated in Marrakech-mainly among
Iraqis. Elderly Zaman (Sami Kaftan) lives in a reed hut in the
southern marshlands with his sick wife, Najma (Shada Salim), who
desperately needs medicine no longer available in the country's
depleted pharmacies. He rows his small boat up the Tigris to Baghdad.
At a hospital there, a corrupt doctor ignores his plea, but a
sympathetic receptionist slips him the medication.
Co-producer Sattar Alwan, the filmmaker's twin brother, explains that they shot on digital video because "the Americans considered celluloid a chemical agent." He claims that the Iraqi government, who had a note-taking minder on set, confiscated five of the 29 tapes they shot for unspecified reasons. "Amer doesn't like that dictator, Saddam," he says.
"That's bullshit," responds Zaid Khatlan, the London-based Iraqi film critic for the Arabic-language daily Al Hayat. "They are Baathists. This is propaganda, a Saddam film. The premise is that there is no medicine because of the embargo. The simplicity minimizes the whole situation onto one man."
A highly charged point of disagreement is the significance of the Saddam portraits hovering over some scenes. Khatlan sees them as valorization of the man and the regime. Sattar Alwan and lead actor Kaftan, Iraq's most famous film and stage star, maintain that the photos were meant to point the finger at Saddam for widespread shortages.
The three men are in accord about one thing: the U.S. presence. Kaftan notes, "The Americans opened up the ministries for thieves except for the Ministry of Oil. Still, the Iraqi people believed what the Americans said, that a new government would give them security. Now they ask, 'Why do you stay?' " "With real, enforced sanctions, the government would have fallen in 10 days," says Khatlan. "The Americans should go now and leave it to us." <http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0344/feinstein.php> *****
***** Zaman, l'Homme des Roseaux Zaman
France - Irak 2003
76 mins / Betacam / Arabic with French subtitles
Director: Amer Alwan Screenplay: Hamid Shakir Director of photography: Thomasz Chichawa Sound: Jean-Pierre Fenie Music: François Rabbath Editing: Roger Ikhlef Producers: Sattar Alwan, Didier Couedic, Marc-André Brunet
Cast: Sami Kaftan (Zaman), Shada Salim (Najma)
Production: ARTE France - Les Films du Village - Guilgamesh Films - Ishtar Productions
ARTE FRANCE 8, rue Marceau F-92785 Issy-les-Moulineaux cedex 9 France Tel: +33 1 55 00 77 77 Fax: +33 1 55 00 77 00 www.arte-tv.com
GUILGAMESH FILMS 21, rue Marceau 92130 Issy -les- Moulineaux Tel: +33 1 41 90 67 00 Fax: +33 1 41 90 67 09 enkidu at club-internet.fr
Amer Alwan
Iraqi nationality
Filmography
- Rivages (1995) - Vengeance (1997) - Les Mandéens d'Iraq (2000) - Les Enfants de l'Embargo (2000) - Hatra, Cité des Dieux (2001) - La Forteresse de Kirkuk (2001)
<http://www.mefilmfestival.org/meff/films/features/zaman.htm> ***** -- Yoshie
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