For his first feature film, the young Franco-Moroccan director Ismaël El Iraki won the grand prize at the Tangier National Film Festival at the end of September. Contact loop (Burning Casablanca) retraces the sulphurous love story of a prostitute with a golden voice and a rock star fallen into drugs. In one year, the film met some 8,000 viewers in Morocco, making it the fifth national film of the year. A good start for a first feature film, in short. But a few weeks later, the controversy rumbles. The Moroccan Cinematographic Center (CCM), which granted a grant of more than 4 million dirhams (nearly 400,000 euros) to the team of Contact loop abruptly announced, on Thursday, the suspension of visas for the exploitation and marketing of the film at national and international level, as well as the withdrawal of Ismaël El Iraki’s professional card.
“Insult to the nation”
The reason ? The presence, for a few seconds in the film, of a song by Mariem Hassan, a Sahrawi singer who died in 2015 in the refugee camps of Tindouf (Algeria) and reputed to be close to the Polisario Front, a separatist military group at war against Morocco. The CCM, which talks about “treason” and D’“insult to the Moroccan nation”, asks that a new version of the film be given to him, the controversial song in less, under penalty of legal proceedings.
Because in Morocco, we do not joke with the question of the disputed territory of the Sahara. After obtaining the support of several major powers including the United States, Germany, Spain and even more recently Belgium, regarding the autonomy plan it is proposing to the Sahrawis, the country now advocates zero tolerance. vis-à-vis all those who might question its “territorial integrity”. Strong in its support, the kingdom no longer compromises.
“Purely aesthetic choice”
In a press release published the day after the sanction, the director and the producers of Contact loop say to themselves “sorry to see a misunderstanding take on such proportions”. They talk about a “purely aesthetic and musical choice”, explaining that Mariem Hassan was chosen for “his voice and not […] [ce] which it represents politically”. Advocating the resolution of the dispute in a manner “positive and calm”, they affirm to have already given to the CCM the new version of the film amputated ofId Chab.
In the local press, no one is surprised by the reaction of the CCM, but some media question the timing of the controversy, a year after the release of the film and especially three weeks after the passage to the Tangier festival. During the demonstration, some jurors did not support the choice of their counterparts for the grand prize, and did not hide the fact of having slammed the door of the jury with a crash, without even attending the deliberations. One of them, director Lahcen Zinoun, even declared on Facebook that his conscience did not allow him to “endorse a choice […] versus [sa] dignity”, without giving more details. If the CCM affirms to have followed indications, on the presence of the song, coming from the “electronic national press”, Release did not find any trace of these articles in the media or on social networks before the publication of the press release.