Early Films by Ahmed Bouanani

What does it mean to inherit and to be responsible for someone’s work? It means identifying, preserving, and transmitting what exists, while also searching for what we do not yet know.

After studying at the IDHEC (Institut des Hautes Études Cinématographiques) in Paris from 1961 to 1963 in the Script and Editing department, the Moroccan filmmaker, poet and writer Ahmed Bouanani joined the Centre cinématographique marocain (CCM), an institution founded in 1944 under the Protectorate and retained by Morocco after independence. At the time, the CCM was not intended to produce films for theatrical release. It responded to commissions from various ministries and produced the Actualités marocaines newsreels, which were shown in cinemas.

It was within this framework that young Moroccan filmmakers anonymously made short films using the Actualités budget for magazines such as Vu pour vous. This was the context in which Bouanani made PETITE HISTOIRE EN MARGE DU CINÉMATOGRAPHE in 1973, about Mohamed Osfour. The film was also shown independently of the Actualités and circulated as part of presentations about Mohamed Osfour.

LA CRÉATURE (1972) is mentioned in Ahmed Bouanani’s La Septième porte, une histoire du cinéma au Maroc de 1907 à 1986, and we have photographs from the shoot. But we only discovered and watched it in 2012, after my father’s death. The film bears witness to Ahmed Bouanani’s deep fascination with fantastic literature and cinema.

It was through an article published in the newspaper Le Petit Marocain that we discovered another film made by Bouanani in 1966, BONNE ANNÉE. We searched for it and eventually found it at the Centre cinématographique marocain. This short film is inspired by spy films and also features technicians from the Centre cinématographique marocain performing roles.

TARFAYA OU LA MARCHE D’UN POÈTE (1966) is a film commissioned by a ministry about Tarfaya, a province of the Spanish Sahara and a town incorporated into Morocco in 1958. It is a hybrid film, somewhere between a commissioned work and the poetic quest of a young man. (Touda Bouanani)

Films:

BONNE ANNÉE, Morocco 1966, 8 min., digital file, original version with English subtitles
LA CRÉATURE, Morocco 1972, 9 min., digital file, original version with English subtitles
TARFAYA OU LA MARCHE D’UN POÈTE, Ahmed Bouanani & Mohamed Abderrahmane Tazi, Morocco 1966, 21 min., digital file, original version with English subtitles​​​​​​​
PETITE HISTOIRE EN MARGE DU CINÉMATOGRAPHE, Morocco 1973, 7 min., digital file, original version

Touda Bouanani is a multidisciplinary artist and video maker. Together with Ali Essafi, Marie Pierre Bouthier, and Léa Morin, she co-founded the Archives Bouanani association, dedicated to preserving and promoting the work of filmmakers Ahmed Bouanani and Naïma Saoudi, as well as their archives, which document cultural life in Morocco throughout the twentieth century. With the support of the Gerda Henkel Foundation, the association created a website and an archival photo library to make these materials more widely accessible: www.archivesbouanani.org. She is also a co-founder of the Intilak collection.