Moumen Smihi, The Sorrows of a Young Tangerian / Tanjaoui: Peines de coeur et tourments du jeune Tanjaoui Larbi Salmi
Morocco 2012, 35mm, 95 min
Continuing the tales of Larbi Salmi, Tanjawi is set in the early years of Moroccan independence in the 1960s. The final part of the trilogy finds him full of revolutionary romanticism and western culture in his final years at high school. Salmi declares his atheism to his religious father, but hides from everyone his love for his English teacher, a beautiful young woman from Paris. Larbi gets involved in the Moroccan student political movement, and only a miracle saves him from the repressive crackdown that his friends must suffer. Shot in startling long takes, the film is Smihi's boldest statement yet on religion and political histories in Morocco.
Film programme notes by Peter Limbrick