This course aims to introduce students to Moroccan cinema and help them appreciate it as a visual introduction to Moroccan society and culture. It focuses on the ways in which this popular art form has both chronicled the country’s development and provided a critical companion to its diverse political, social, cultural, and economic problems. The close study of themes and politics on the big screen during this period will help students grasp Moroccan society and its history through the eyes of ordinary, and often invisible, people. Ultimately, the course attempts to draw larger theoretical lessons about the nature and role of cinema, social change, and cultural transformations in contemporary Morocco and beyond in the wider MENA region.
