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FAMILY IN EXILE

FAMILY IN EXILE

MOROCCO 25 MIN, 2018
RUSSIAN PREMIERE
 
APRIL 6, 14:45
MOSCOW, CINEMA OCTOBER

  • ABOUT

    An intimate documentary, set in Morocco, about the conflicts within the filmmaker's family. It is a daughter's quest to understand her father's refusal, over many years, to interact with her and her mother. Through a series of revealing conversations with family members, stories touching on gender tensions, religious beliefs, and parent/child relationships are evoked. It is a personal visual letter of resistance by a daughter to a dictatorial father.

  • DIRECTOR

    FATIMA MATOUSSE

     

    Fatima Matousse is a Moroccan independent filmmaker studying an MFA in Documentary Film at the City College of New York. After spending several years working as a program manager for several Non-Profit Organizations in Morocco, Fatima decided to become a visual storyteller. She obtained the Fulbright Scholarship to travel to New York to pursue her career. Over the past years, Fatima won several grants that allowed her to participate in various trainings in Turkey, Germany, and the U.S.A. Matousse holds an MA in Cultural and Media Studies from Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah University in Fez which concluded with a thesis titled "Rewriting Her Story Through Documentary films: A Feminist and Postcolonial Approach to Ali Essafi and Dalila Ennadre's Documentaries" where she focused on the history of marginalized women in Morocco. Fatima is currently in post-production for her film debut titled Family in Exile which chronicles stories within her own family.

  • OTHER FESTIVALS

    • The Americas New York Film Festival 
    • The Arab Film Festival 
    • NewFilmmakers New York Film Festival 
    • International Short Film Festival Berlin 
    • World of Women Film Fair Middle East 
    • Beirut International Women Film Festival 
    • Smita Patil Documentary and Short Film Festival

  • DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT

    As a child, I always remember day-dreaming about that magical day where someone will appear and tell me, just like in the movies, that he is my real father. I was drawing another imaginative reality to escape the violence, aggression, and control my father made us live in. As a female, he made feel bad about my body, my face, and my laugh. A female body should fully covered, he insisted. I was never allowed to go on school trips or out with friends. Though I was, somehow, imprisoned, I used my confinement time to excel in school. Reading, writing, dancing, and singing has saved me from loosing my sanity. Family in exile, tackles a taboo topic uncovering behind the closed doors of a Moroccan family. It is a creative narrative that questions dominant ideas, gender roles, and family dynamics. It is a film that gives voice to the women in my family who constantly been silent. This film is a visual letter of resistance to patriarchy, child-abuse and women’s oppression in the name of tradition, culture, and religion.

  • SECTION

    DOKer 2019 — Short Competition

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