For further information please download the film sheet (PDF).
Orphan Messaoud is adopted by a childless farmer at the age of eight. His adoptive father disciplines the gentle child with extreme severity, leading to ever more rebellious behaviour in the traumatised youth. As a young man, Messaoud gets involved with a group of violent ne’er-do-wells and lives his life on the edge.
Wechma marks a departure in Moroccan cinema: a feature film that is experimental, particularly in the second part, breaks with conventional narrative structures and abruptly counters naturalism with Freudian symbolism and sequences that are downright fantastical.
Hamid Benani, Mohamed Sekkat, Ahmed Bouanani and Mohamed Abderrahman Tazi, classmates at the Parisian film school IDHEC, came together to found the production company Sigma 3 for this film. Wechma was made in collective fashion (Sekkat served as producer, Bouanani as assistant director and editor, Tazi as director of photography). Bouanani’s Al-Sarab was meant to be the collective’s next production, but Benani alienated his collaborators by claiming all the glory for himself. The group broke up and Bouanani had to wait a decade before being able to complete his own project. (Christoph Terhechte)
Production: Sigma 3 Films
Camera: Mohamed Abderrahman Tazi
Cast: Mohamed Kadan, Kadidja Moujabid, Majdouline Abdelkader Moutaa
Format: 35 mm, Black/White
Running time: 105 min
Language: Arabic
