Kevin Dwyer, The Perils and Promise of Moroccan Cinema (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025).
Jadaliyya (J): What made you write this book?
Kevin Dwyer (KD): Since the late 1990s my anthropological research has concentrated on Moroccan cinema, a particularly interesting example of a small and dynamic national cinema. This led, in 2004, to my book Beyond Casablanca: M.A. Tazi and the Adventure of Moroccan Cinema, focusing on the films and career of Muhammad Abderrahman Tazi and the first English-language book on Moroccan cinema. As I was writing that book and for the following two decades, I was also writing articles, presenting conference papers, and giving university courses (at the American University in Cairo and Columbia University in New York) on Moroccan cinema as well as on the cinemas of Egypt, Tunisia, and Algeria.
As I looked back over this period I began to see that my writings could be seen as tracing the history of Moroccan cinema into the twenty-first century and that it might be useful for people interested in this history, and for Moroccans themselves, to be able to find these writings in one place. With Moroccan cinema having evolved in a complex manner over this period, I also felt that delving more deeply into this cinema might provide some insights into cinemas across the globe.
J: What particular topics, issues, and literatures does the book address?
KD: This book is divided into four parts. Part I looks at Moroccan cinema in its regional context in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries and explores its salient characteristics, among them the paradox of a small national cinema facing threats from many directions but, at the same time, showing great dynamism and attracting a growing national audience.
Part II presents several conversations I had during the century’s first decade with Moroccan filmmakers Abdelkader Lagtaa, Hakim Noury, and Muhammad Abderrahman Tazi, addressing themes in Moroccan cinema such as challenges to authority, the role of humor, and relationships between the “real” and the “symbolic.”
Part III explores several key subjects during this first decade, including the concepts of cultural diversity and the cultural exception, the role of life history in Moroccan cinema, and the complicated issue of freedom of expression.
Part IV attempts to assess the current state of Moroccan cinema, including the growing importance of documentary, how that early paradox is working itself out in the present, and questions regarding the future of Moroccan cinema and the Moroccan filmmaker’s odyssey.
An appendix to the book presents some forty photographs showing aspects of the author’s five decades of research in Morocco and various views of Moroccan cinema, including photos of festivals, film theaters, filmmakers, and so on.
J: How does this book connect to and/or depart from your previous work?
KD: In the late 1960s I began my anthropological research in Morocco, working in a small agricultural village in the Taroudannt region and returning there a number of times over the next decade. This led to my doctoral thesis (The Cultural Bases of Entrepreneurial Activity: a study of a Moroccan Peasant Community, 1974) and to my first book (Moroccan Dialogues: Anthropology in Question, 1982). From the late 1970s to the mid-1980s I was employed as head of Amnesty International’s Middle East Research Department and, immediately following this, I carried out independent research on human rights issues in Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt, leading to my second book, Arab Voices: the human rights debate in the Middle East (1991).
By the time Arab Voices was published I had moved to Tunis where I started an independent research institute (l’Institut de recherches appliquées) and worked on projects for various international organizations, such as Oxfam, the Economist Intelligence Unit, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, and others.
Over this period my interests began to shift from the usual anthropological emphasis on the analysis, exploration, and understanding of cultural patterns and processes to issues related to the creation of culture, how people create cultural products, how social, political, and cultural forces shape these products, and how these creative actions are diffused regionally, nationally, and globally.
I decided that cinema would be a very interesting field for exploring these issues and over more than two decades, starting in the late 1990s, I have been carrying out research and writing on Moroccan cinema.
J: Who do you hope will read this book, and what sort of impact would you like it to have?
KD: People interested in cultural production in the MENA region and, in particular, in the field of cinema, will find much relevant material in this book. And, of course, people with a particular interest in Moroccan cinema should find this book provides both an overview and also specific information relating to this subject. I would also hope that this book is read by those interested in global cinema as well as, more broadly, in questions related to how cultural products are created and diffused in particular political, economic, and social contexts.
J: What other projects are you working on now?
KD: I continue to pursue the difficult task of keeping up to date with developments in the very dynamic field of Moroccan cinema, attempting to place these developments in the regional and global context and, at the same time, looking at the implications for these fields in a world situation where cultural creativity faces many challenges, among them authoritarian trends, climate issues, and the expansion of artificial intelligence.
This effort includes trying to view, interpret, and discuss films of the new generation of men and women filmmakers of the Maghreb—roughly those engaged in creative activity following the uprisings that started in the region in 2011—whose activities are introducing new perspectives into the cinema and creative arts of the region. This new generation includes a growing proportion of women filmmakers, increasing numbers of filmmakers trained in Morocco, as well as a significant number of Moroccans of the diaspora—all of which keeps us attuned to the constantly shifting nature of cinema in Morocco and in the world at large.
J: How did this project evolve from your initial ideas to what you finally worked on?
KD: As with many research projects—perhaps most of them—there were significant shifts over the years from my initial aims to what I finally came to study. Whereas my initial interest in the production of culture might have led to any of a multitude of subjects, I first formulated this project as a study of cinema and theater in three countries I had already worked in, with a tentative title something like, “Creative Artists, New Social Visions, and Civil Society in the Contemporary Arab World: Cinema and Theater in Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt.”
I had recently finished working on human rights issues in the same three countries and I had been able to find a way to explore this rather vast field and to publish a book and several articles on this subject. However, as I began to pursue research on the creation of cultural products, I soon realized that I would not be able to do justice to the three countries, each with a deep tradition of both theatrical and cinematic production. After an initial period of research on the three countries and interviewing a number of people in the film and theater worlds, I became increasingly aware of my limited human and financial resources (for part of the time, I had some very limited research funding), and I decided to focus my project on one country, Morocco, probably the country among these three that I knew the best.
As I began to concentrate on Morocco, I saw that I faced another problem: doing research on theater required that one be present in person for the actual performances, since there was no extensive archive of these performances. And, with Moroccan cinema being already a very interesting and dynamic field, I decided I would concentrate on this. This continued to stimulate my interest over the following decades and into the present.
Excerpt from the book (from Chapter 12: Conclusion, pages 316, 322, and 325)
One relatively recent overall assessment [by UNESCO] of Moroccan cinema observes that... “Morocco is positioned as one of the African countries with the greatest presence in film production, with a commitment from the public authorities and a declared will to use the vast potential of film to best advantage for the development of the country and its sociocultural characteristics. The strategic objective is to make Morocco a regional and international hub through a policy of partnerships, reinforcing the support system for Moroccan films, and attracting foreign investment.”
And the CCM’s [Centre Cinématographique Marocain] most recent annual assessment of Moroccan cinema’s performance highlights several areas where its performance shows significant achievements: 34 Moroccan feature films were produced in 2023 (the largest number ever in one year); 81 cinema screens were in operation during this year (the most since 2009) and 28.5 million Moroccan dirhams (DH) were allocated for new theaters, theater renovations, and digitalization (the most since funding for these needs was established in 2013); more than 1 billion dirhams were invested in Morocco by foreign film productions (the highest amount since 2015); and Moroccan films were in competition at 86 foreign film festivals (the highest number since 2017).
[…] In addition to its positive performance on the national level, Moroccan cinema is also showing growing presence on the international level. Evidence of these advances can be seen in Morocco’s participation in international festivals, the awards Moroccan films have garnered, and in foreign film productions in Morocco. There is also a growing international literature that discusses Moroccan cinema.
[…] Another sign of Moroccan cinema’s growing international presence was a series of visits by Moroccan filmmakers to New York City, fortuitously occurring while I was in there during the first months of 2024. Within the space of a couple of weeks two very significant figures from the Moroccan film world were invited to New York City educational institutions: Izza Genini, the well-known director and producer of films on Morocco’s cultural heritage was the guest of honor at the ninth annual session of the New York Forum of Amazigh Film and a number of her films set in Amazigh communities were shown to a very enthusiastic public at both LaGuardia Community College and Columbia University; and Ahmed El Maanouni, director of two films included in Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project, “dedicated to protecting and preserving motion picture history … and representing the rich diversity of world cinema,” was invited as the subject of a series of events at Columbia University.
And later in 2024 Morocco’s pioneering woman filmmaker, Farida Benlyazid, was invited to Baltimore and New York City to accompany the presentation of a newly restored version of her very influential first film, A Door to the Sky (1988), as well as to mark the publication of Professor Florence Martin’s biography of Benlyazid.
[…] (from Chapter 12: Epilogue, pages 336 to 337)
As I look back on my more than two decades of research on Moroccan cinema, I return to the parallel with the Odyssey that I drew in my first paper [2002] on the subject, where my final words suggested that the Moroccan filmmaker might, “after reuniting with his audience for a time, … set off on a new long voyage …”
As we attempt to understand Moroccan cinema’s development over more than two decades (and it took Odysseus about that much time to return home to Ithaca after the Trojan War), we should recall that Odysseus, like many Moroccan filmmakers, was ambitious ... [and] perhaps even more important, he was, again like many Moroccan filmmakers, persistent, dedicated, and sharp-witted—how else could he (and they) have endured such an extended and perilous voyage, survived its many ordeals and challenges, and succeeded, finally, in reuniting with Penelope, the privileged domestic audience, and in assuming an eminent place at home.
Homer’s Odyssey ends with the hero’s successful return home. Yet continuing success is never assured and what happens to Odysseus afterwards has been a subject for speculation. Some stories have Odysseus leaving Ithaca, marrying again and finding new audiences away from home; others have him leading a full life in Ithaca and dying only of old age, as prophesied by the seer Tiresias; and still others find him unhappy back in Ithaca or even not returning to Ithaca at all. Yet another story sees Odysseus unintentionally slain by Telegonus, the son he fathered with the magician goddess Circe....
Which of these scripts—or others yet to be written—Moroccan film-makers will bring to the screen, whether that screen will be a public or private one, and how creative activity will be culturally and societally embedded and expressed, are matters impossible to know at this stage. In addition, today’s Moroccan film sector and its filmmakers (mostly men but with a growing number of women) have been so nurtured by images from all over the world and have spent so much time in so many different places that distinctions between “home” and “abroad,” between Morocco and elsewhere, have become unsettled. In this sense, and in many others as well, Moroccan filmmakers have much in common with their global counterparts, embarked as they all are on an always uncertain and risky journey, on an odyssey that inevitably links Moroccan cinema’s fate to that of world cinema as a whole.