Moroccan director Adel Al-Fadhili presented his new film “My Father Is Not Dead” for the third time at the national level after he was able to win important awards during its first showing at the Tangier Film Festival, at the end of last year.
In the following interview given to Hespress, Adel Al-Fadhli talks about the participation of his tape in the Mediterranean Cinema Festival in Tetouan, working conditions, his late father, and other topics.
Tell us about your preparation and work on your long tape, “My Father Did Not Die.”
When I finished the film “A Short Life,” I began to think about my feature film, which I wanted to be at the level of what was mentioned above, because the long film and the short film are two completely different things, but I wanted the same world because it resembles me a little, so I chose a black historical era in Moroccan history, and I tried to tell it. With many colours, poetry and humanity, I researched a little about that era and watched films that touched on topics related to the Years of Lead, but this work talks about the people who fell victim to that period and did not have a political role in struggle at that time. Rather, they were ordinary people working in an amusement park, their crime. The only thing is that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, while employing historical influences dating back to those years. Which is what gave the movie “My Father Is Not Dead.”
What do you think of the wide acclaim from the audience and critics who watched the work?
This makes me very happy, because after long fatigue and difficulties, I and the work team of actors and technicians believed in the same vision, and we tried to overcome the obstacles in order to reach this work. But when we see the audience’s reaction, we forget everything.
Most importantly, during the presentation of the work, the audience traveled with it and attracted its attention, and this in itself is a very important thing that makes me forget all the difficulties I went through.
Many have linked the film’s title to your father, the late artist Aziz Al-Fadhli, so what is your comment?
no. Frankly, the tape and the scenario have nothing to do with my father, may God have mercy on him. He played a role in the work, and I did not think at any moment about embodying his story, because in the film I talk about many of the memories of my childhood that I lived, starting with the amusement park phase, in addition to the French buildings in the Marse Sultan neighborhood. The characters were inspired by people I knew. But it was difficult to change the public’s perception that the work was not about my father until they saw the tape.
When will the new tape arrive in national theaters?
God willing, next November will be shown in Moroccan halls, if everything goes in the same direction, God willing.
Could you work in the future on an artistic work that embodies your father’s biography and artistic career?
Currently I haven’t decided yet. Everything comes in its time, and today I am not ready to make a film about my father, even though his life was rich… We grew up in an artistic environment in which we saw how our father loved the field, and how he prepared for his work and to meet his fans, especially during his childhood when he used to present karaoke, which is a magical and realistic world.
Do we have a real film industry today in Morocco?
I do not think that we have reached a real cinematic industry, because there are Moroccan films, but there is no Moroccan cinema yet, and there is no cinematic movement like we have seen in other countries. We have diversity and different films, but we have a problem with producers, as we do not have a large production that ventures into cinema like me, and we have few distributors who bear the responsibility of marketing the productions, so we are still at the beginning.
last word..
Thank you Hespress for this dialogue and this honest type of journalism. I tell the audience that cinema is life.
