Director: Nabil Ayouch
Country: Morocco
Year: 2000
Runtime: 90 minutes
Arabic with English Subtitles
Awards: Stockholm Film Festival - Bronze Horse, Amiens International Film Festival - Audience Award, Montreal World Film Festival - Ecumenical Award
A harrowing depiction of the hardships faced by the legions of street children who populate the ruined ghettoes of modern-day Casablanca, ALI ZAOUA tells the tale of three young boys who doggedly persist in their efforts to preserve the memory of a fallen comrade. Young Ali (a kind of urchin messiah) leads his three companions away from a loosely "organized" confederation of dispossessed youth who have pledged allegiance to a scruffy and terrifying deaf-mute overlord, Dib. In the ensuing confrontation, Ali is hit on the head with a brick and killed. The crowd disperses and Ali's disciples are left with the body which they are determined to give a "prince's burial." Along the way, the film brilliantly uncovers the various degradations that these forgotten children must suffer in the crime-ridden and violent streets that they inhabit. Never letting us forget that these hard-edged kids are still children, the film has several colorful and heartrending animated flights of fantasy that express the hopes and dreams of young Kwita who becomes the gang's de facto leader. Unlike Hector Babenco's Pixote, which tore the lid off the appalling lives led by children in the slums of Sao Paolo, Brazil, ALI ZAOUA balances the bleakness of its reality with the persistence of hope in its young protagonists as they struggle to maintain a sense of dignity in the face of unendurable conditions. (Synopsis by the Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema)
Principal Cast: Mounïm Kbab, Mustapha Hansali, Hicham Moussoune, Abdelhak Zhayra, Saïd Taghmaoui, Amal Ayouch, Mohamed Majd, Hicham Ibrahimi
Director Bio:
Nabil Ayouch was born in 1969 of a Moroccan father and a French mother. Raised in Paris he has directed more than fifty commercials. His first short film was made in 1992 -- Les Pierres Bleues du Désert with Jamel Debbouze. Two other shorts followed Hertzienne Connexion and Vendeur de Silence. Ayouch has received many awards at international festivals. The 1997 Moroccan box office success Mektoub, his first feature film, officially represented Morocco at the 1999 Oscars. Ali Zaoua has won awards at Stockholm International Film Festival and film festivals in Mannheim-Heidelberg and Olso. Ali Zaoua is Morrocco's contribution to the 2001 Academy Awards nominations.
Filmography:
2000 Ali Zaoua, Prince of the Streets
1998 Mektoub
1992 Pierres bleues du désert, Les
Screenplay: Nabil Ayouch, Nathalie Saugeon
Photo: Vincent Mathias
Editing: Jean-Robert Thomann
Website Link: http://www.arabfilm.com/item/203/