Oued Nefifik: A Foreign Movie

Oued Nefifik: A Foreign Movie is an experimental narrative that incorporates an actual political situation. The film was shot in the immediate aftermath of violent repression following food riots in Casablanca, June 1981. It characterizes the experience of a political event for people outside of it. The point of view is that of an absurd and sympathetic character based on Jacques Tati’s Mr Hulot, who is distanced from the post-colonial milieu in which he finds himself. (He doesn’t speak the language, he doesn’t speak their language).

"This very brief film, an ensemble of partially-apprehended tragedy, Pinteresque banality, and witty observation, has more truth and intelligence in it than any number of salon weepies by Costa-Gravas and Wajda. It is visually playful, complex, inventive, and utterly unpretentious: a film to see for pleasure, for its droll and mindful sense of life."

–-Mavis Jenkins (a.k.a. Gary Indiana), Wedge Magazine, Spring 1985