Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Outrageous SNRT employees cry against cut salaries



There is something fishy in the halls of SNRT,states a CDT militant whose voice becomes horse today as thounsands of Outrageous SNRT employees stand right at the main entrance of Moroccan national television protesting agaisnt fiscal frauds believed to be practised in the heart of SNRT administration.

Just before several hours of the new year 2010;nearly one thounsand of SNRT employees stand hand in hand crying like hell because somebody has cut out , without mercy, half of their salaries.CDT has organised today's meeting as to protest against the slow and unsignificant behaviour of SNRT bureacrats.

Poeple are hurt of this happening especially they say ,thanks to this annual salary ,they take their kids away for fun and some entertainement .During the protest,some women burst into tears while others prefer to whistle using thier mouths just to show the successful solidarity of SNRT employees.SNRT has finally agreed to solve the problem by returning the usual and full salaries to its owners and promised not to repeat this error again.However, too many people prefer to create a commity to investigate on this fraud ,while others angrilly prefer to write a draft report to the king of Morocco begging his majesty to interfere for the sake and the interest of the employees.

Friday, December 25, 2009

Moroccan engineer Marches to Gaza from Rabat.



A Moroccan engineer has bravely boycotted Israeli training courses to be given at Sofrecom Maroc and Sofrecom Services in Rabat,the capital of Morocco. The engineer was immediately fired because he refused to work with zionists who slaughtered million of women and children in Gaza last year.

This case of this engineer is controvercial now in Morocco as the civil society is moving to cry out for the sake of practicing Moroccan law by this french firm named Sofrecom found in Agadal in Rabat.It could be another political crisis like the one of Aminato Hayder,a freelancer states.





The Freedom March has the participation of many noteworthy people, including author Alice Walker, Syrian actor and director Duraid Lahham, Roger Waters of Pink Floyd, and French rap group MAP, amongst others.Amongst the participants is 84-year old Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstien.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Morocco and Egypt will disappear from earth


Instead of activity, there is agony.According to ecological scientists, Morocco and Egypt among Arab countries will be soon disappearing from earth by flood water.The world is not willing to save millions of humanity.Cop 15 is plunged into political struggle between the strong and the weak. Deceptions grow greatly .Please; react to save our world .

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Mangala by Mahboob Khan


Mangala Al Badawiya,translated into Moroccan dialect by Ibrahim Sayah, was a popular movie loved by Moroccans right after in the independence .Many film makers were inspired by this woderful epic movie namely Mohammed Osfour,Ibrahim Sayah .


Mother India (Hindi: भारत माता, Urdu: بھارت ماتا) is a 1957 Bollywood film directed by Mehboob Khan and starring Nargis, Sunil Dutt, Rajendra Kumar and Raj Kumar. The film is a remake of Mehboob Khan's earlier film Aurat (1940).[1] The film was fifth Indo-Russian co-production, and was preceded by Pardesi (1957), also starring Nargis Dutt.[2] In 2005, Indiatimes Movies ranked the movie amongst the Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films.[3] The film ranked #3 in the list of all-time box office hits.


The film was India's first submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1958, and was chosen as one of the five nominations for the category. The film came close to winning the award, but eventually lost to Frederico Fellini's Nights of Cabiria by a single vote




Mother India – The Cinema of Mehboob Khan
July 30, 2008 — shakila
Would it be true to say that the song sequence as a narrative convention of popular Indian cinema cannot be understood in terms of the conventions of the western, Hollywood dominant realist tradition? In Mehboob Khan’s Mother India released in 1957, I would say that this is a fact. Mehboob Khan’s mother India was one of the first films made in Technicolor in India and was nominated for an Oscar.

This article looks particularly at one of the song sequences “villagers don’t abandon the land of your birth, mother earth calls out to you with imploring hands” showing a complex cyclical experience of a village surviving on the brink of famine and floods and appears half way through the film. .

At its best, the song sequence is an integral part of the narrative and mise-en-scene of popular Indian film not merely a musical interruption of action.

“The songs in the India film are not mere musical interludes in an otherwise pedestrian film – at least not some of the best films. They are integral to telling the story in a fantastical and enchanting way. The songs express the inner world of a character – his or her identity, longings, dreams and dilemmas. Song Pictorisation* is the high point of Indian film and every film enthusiast has a galaxy of memories, an amalgam of image and song indelibly stained in their mind and hearts…” E. Johnson; Musical Movies Artrage No.19

The ‘conventional’ western view of Indian cinema can be seen in John Russell Taylor’s article on Satyajit Ray, “Ray is a great director (it is a prerogative of all great artists, to take us constantly by surprise – Ray is still a solitary figure, a unique talent in Indian Cinema… Background was highly literate and artistically sophisticated”. J R Taylor on Ray – Cinema a critical dictionary.

Although Taylor’s view of Indian cinema is considered to be outdated, critically, not may commercial Hindi films have been appreciated by non-South Asian audiences, despite the huge success of Hindi films at the box office in the UK.

Mehboob’s Mother India was a ground breaking film and can be seen as a departure from subjects being dealt within the Bombay film industry at the time. The film explored the relationship between farmers and their landlords. The storyline is very simple: an ordinary village life exploring the complexity and simplicity of such a life along with the communal pain and joy shared by all. The only outsider is the moneylender.

Mother India was shown in countries such as Spain, Greece, Egypt, and the Soviet Union and was extremely popular. In Spain, the film has been reported to run in the theatre for months: “This international dimension is revealing in terms of shared experiences of many societies in transition from peasant culture with their oral-folk tradition to industrial city based state and the anonymity of urban life. In Spain for example Mother India did good business in Andalusia where the power of the landlords over illiterate day labourers is similar to that portrayed in Mehboob’s masterpiece.” E. Johnson Artrage No.19

The story of Mother India is of Radha, the central character played by Nargis. She marries at a young age and is a peasant from a peasant community which is in constant debt and depends largely on the land. Her husband, played by Raj Kumar loses both arms in a farming accident and leaves the family in shame as he can no longer provide for them. Mehboob cleverly tackles the element of masculinity of man as head and provider for the family by showing the woman, Radha, who has to bear the shame and tries to sustain the dignity of the family as a whole. She is constantly in debt to the moneylender and faces a lifetime of hardship and struggle against poverty.



The film itself is a flashback. In the opening sequence we see Radha as an old woman who is requested to open the irrigation ditch. We see a close-up of her aged and wrinkled face which is followed by a dissolve of her memories of her wedding day. In the sequence at the end of the film, we see Radha, as we go back to the opening shot of the film, Radha as an old woman/the mother of the village, lifting the barrier to the water through. As the water rushes out, it turns into blood that has been shed in her past and flows out to water the fields.

In the song “villagers don’t abandon the land of your birth, mother earth calls out to you with imploring hands”, the sequence expresses the central themes of the film:

1. The earth as the “mother” of its people – Radha’s appeal to the villagers not to abandon the flooded land. The village is seen as the foundation stone of Indian society at the climax of the sequence where the villagers form a map of India with the harvested millet and at its heart is a direct reference to the Congress party’s slogan of the period “the village is India”.

2. Radha in turn becomes the mother of the village and by extension a symbol of rural virtues – not just rural virtues but feminine virtues where women can be relied upon to sustain the family; the community and by extension the whole of society. Radha is the woman who struggles against all odds to keep the family together, enduring hardship and suffering while resisting the importuning of the moneylender. Radha herself pulls the plough when there is no Ox.

3. The internal time-scheme of the song sequence is very complex: dissolves are used to superimpose continuity in a sequence which shifts between the past and an idealised view of the past/present/future. One dissolve contains a transition from Radha pulling the plough guider helped by her infant sons to the roles reveres and we see Radha who guides the plough while her fully grown sons pull it. They are now able to support her and the point is made visually clear as they lift her up and carry her on their shoulders.

4. The recurring shots of a wheel suggests the cycle of the season, from the sowing of the seeds to reaping the harvest and the cycle of human life from childhood to old age. Dissolves are used to depict the progress in time, past and present as opposed to a cut which would signify a break in the progress of the characters and disturb the smooth transition achieved by using dissolves.

In the sequence we see Radha’s past life, her lost husband, the progress and development of her children and finally we come to the present: ““villagers don’t abandon the land of your birth….” Sung by Radha after the village has been destroyed by floods. In the song Radha begs the villagers to stay and work on the land. Radha cannot leave as she is certain her husband will return to her. The character of Radha is ‘Mother India’. She is the land and the harvest – she gives and finally takes life.

In the beginning of the sequence we see Radha feeding the children with some roots she had gathered, this dissolves to a field, flooded, and an early morning sky. She is approached by villagers to leave, but refuses. We see a cut to her face against a clear sky and is singled out. Here Mehboob uses dissolves to create a rhythm of visuals – we see Radha looking at the villagers, a superimposition of her head on the villagers leaving, her head is the sky – she is both the sky and the earth. At this point she is visually separated from the villagers. These shots of her clearly involve the symbolism of Soviet posters. This slowly dissolves to the villagers who turn back and she is surrounded by them, becoming a part of them and they work together to clear the land. Radha is at one and the same time the poorest and least significant member of the community and symbolically its leading figure.

There has been progress, the family has bought an Ox, so Radha does not need to push the plough – nevertheless she is there in the field, feeding her sons as they work and not eating herself, depicting motherly love and self-sacrifice. The villagers in unity plough the land, with fast and hard cutting we quickly move to the harvest time. Mehboob takes us to the wheel and a flashback. Again we see poster like images. Radha and Shamu (her husband) are together again, dissolves are used to set the rhythm, Radha holding the millet, becoming a symbol of fertility. Several shots of men and women in the fields holding axes and sickles, becoming moving posters – Mehboob takes us back to the wheel, back to the future, again we see poster like images, new relationships being formed.

The suggested ‘leadership’ of the village is Radha holding the millet backed by her sons with the villagers in the background and a dissolve to the map of India at Harvest time, with the millet in the middle of the map representing the heart of India. Here Mehboob’s political stand becomes clear that of a Congress Party supporter. Mehboob helped to propagate political ideology and the famous songs of the Congress Party “the village is India and India is the village”, which in the 1970’s was grotesquely echoed when “Indira” became India and India became “Indira”. Ironically Sunil Dutt who played Birju, one of Radha’s son’s also became a successful political with the Congress Party (and was also married to Nargis).

In the final dissolve to the village we see more circular motions. We finally come back to reality at the end of the sequence by the arrival of the moneylender, suggesting inevitable suffering and hardship.

Clearly Mehboob has portrayed and reinforced the status and ideological image of womanhood, fixing it within the tradition of the sub-continent: “a virtuous village woman who faces extreme hardship so that her family can survive in dignity. In the character of Radha we see strength, determination, devotion and virtue. Radha becomes a model of the mother figure for the entire village because of her courage and sense of honour. Mother India is also important for its portrayal of the tribulations of rural life”. Channel Four publicity for their Indian Cinema season in the 1980’s.

We see one of several shots suggesting unity, a unity of men and women, but only on the fields; of men and women walking parallel in the Mela (village fair). At the Mela we see more wheels. The Mela here represents collective and individual happiness and celebrations. In the Mela, Shamu and Radha are walking around with the children. Radha walks directly under a plough and Shamu walks ahead and stops to stroke a bull, signifying the loss and hardship to come.

In an extraordinary dissolve, a generation passes. Mehboob uses dissolves to move time forward. Radha is pulling the plough helped by her infant sons. We see the transition in time when Radha falls down and the children rise from the earth as adults lifting Radha up. The roles are reversed; she is no longer the provider and supporter. Mehboob uses music to suggest triumph – overcoming hardships. Again Mehboob uses dissolves to suggest the shift in seasons and the continuity/solidness in the relationships. Through a series of dissolves, the sequence capitalises on the wheel as a symbol of time.

*The concept of pictorisation – 1) not an interruption of action, it compliments the action 2) can provide an emotional gloss on the narrative, a subjective point of view, which cannot be contained within the narrative

This article first appeared as an essay in 1987 as part of Film and Video degree at LCP – Essay year 1 – Term 2: “analyse the relation between cinematic (mise-en-scene, editing, lighting, framing etc) and meaning in a sequence from a film of your choice”.

Monday, December 07, 2009

Xenophobia in 2012,a movie by Roland Emmerich



Hollywood is not producing intelligent cinema .That is for sure.2012 is an American movie directed by Roland Emmerich that talks about the end of the world through collapsing buildings, jumping flaming cars, planes falling down and huge waves destroying Titanic like ships .Surely, the acting was not at all convincing but to tell you the truth the images made by soft wares are tremendously brilliant.

2012 starts its first scene somewhere in India .Earth is confirmed to be soon destroyed and this news is announced by some Indian and American geologists .Hollywood knows the reason why to involve into India, may be 2012 producer is afraid of Bollywood to remake much better movie than his .Yes, it is true that 2012 is meant only to entertain us, but please start to entertain us intelligently.

Arab Cinemagoers become aware of bad movies such as the one we are talking about and may soon there will a major boycott of Hollywood movies , because simply Hollywood is racist;anti Arab,anti women,anti humanity but pro Jewish who like The independent days movie find the last solution to kill the bad guys and you know who are the bad guys.

Please, look at this poetic image of the Hero standing up in the middle of the poster facing a huge wave to come.Well, Jewish producers remind us of The Ten commandments ‘ the beloved Moses splitting the sea via the Almighty power. But what strikes me most is that “2012 humanity” includes only Americans some Asian People and European Union, however third world people are totally ignored .Is 2012 trying to convey to us that third world people are persona non grata even during the end of the world and the apocalypse time or is it only a deliberately artistic error just to say that we people of the north are the ones who might survive?


Allal El Alaoui

P.S : I am not anti -jews but i am with objective and lucid ideas

Friday, December 04, 2009

Filming anthropoligical Oulad Amrane in Doukkala.





Evey Moroccan is a Doukkali or somehow runs in his or her blood some Doukkali typical characteristics.Doukkala-Abda is in the centre of Morocco and is a land known of its fertility like a beautiful Greek Goddess, otherwise like Shiva the merciful Indian Goddess whose hands are bound to give for the sake of some live species called the human beings.

No doubt Doukkala-Abda has been a sacred place for writers,adventures,peasants and course anthropoligists .Doukkala is named proudly the mouth of Morocco because, being a fertile land ,has managed to feed millions of Morocans.This fact urges Malika Hatim,a SNRT journalist,dig into the deep roots of doukkala in order to introduce through the image, fertility via a typical wedding from a “Douwar”, a small village called Oulad Amrane (in arabic : - اولاد عمران,- situated on your way to Youssoufia,neighborned majestically by some honorable irrigation zone tribes belonging to Al Jadida province namely Sidi Benour ,Laaraya, Laghndra ,Ouled Sbaita ,Sania Berreguig ,Gharbia ,Oualidia, Oulad Frej, Khmis Zemamra ….


Hatim has done her anthropological search about this little town because the irea is not only rich of its rituals and traditions ,but it is also illuminated and benidicted by its Sufi Sheik Mohammed Ben Taib Al Bouazzaoui whose disciple was Moulay Bouchaib Addoukkali, an honourable and spiritual Sufi himself well respected by Moroccans especiallly Doukkalis .


Doukkalis are beautiful people, harsh talking, but hard like their land and soft and fertile just like their women. They are known to have a solid stomach .They can proudly eat couscous after having devoured extra food referring to a Moroccan saying ”Doukka Wakkala fisma Rekkala “ .Globalisation has not affected them too much apart from some catgets referring to PCs,mobiles and sattelile dishes favouring only to listen to some typical Moroccan music naming forexample , belly dancers group called ِاChikhate,Dakka Haouzya,Dakka Kharboucha, Hasbaoui etc .,their style of wearing handsome “Djallabas”,”Ghandouras” or “Selhams” come from their resepcted Sheik ,Moulay Bouaazaoui; an elegant illuminator and smart leader .Unlike other Sheiks and Sufis who wore shabby clothes ,Moulay Bouaazzaoui put on nice clothes which has tremendous impact on simple peasants and fortunate doukkalis.By the way ,horses are lovable animals in this region.



SNRT ,with great devotion and light of intelligence, accepts to produce Malika ‘s project on Oulad Amrane.It is a story of a typical wedding in Doukkala gathering two young Doukkalis ,just met within spontaneity and later get married in a romantic way passing through magnificent rituals using sacred elements like milk ,bread, Hannah, dates and sugar. These items are used in traditional weddings in order to chase evil from fertility.
Artistically speaking, the job how to transfer this story into the image is a job of Mohammed Ben Ramadane and his technical crew .Ben Ramadane is the director of this documentary-fiction project titled Alhawdaj which is a 52 minutes length.


Professionally speaking ,Mohammed Ben Ramadane was a truquiste editor , first recruited in SNRT ex - RTM in 1991 .Although he was primed by some Canada festival "LE PARTAGE DES EAUX" working with MAJID RECHICH ,he was obliged to go to Dubai television holding, because that time in Morocco, national television was governed by police .Freedom of speech was restricted and was not too much respected.Some technicians criticise this choice of Ben Ramdane, although he has the charisma of a smart metteur en scène, besides he has an interesting cultural background, the fact he has realized too many artistic programmes either locally or intenrantionally,others like myself praise this choice because they see in Mohammed the right guy to fulfil the artistic mission because simply it is a matter of trust and intuition . Good Luck.

Allal El Alaoui

Alhawdaj crew

Director : Mohammed Ben ramdane.
Writer : Malika Hatim.
First assistant-director : Allal El Alaoui.
Second assistant –director : Said Laaroussi
First cameraman : Abdessalem El Mansourri
Cameraman: Said Sriti.
Sound technician : Aziz Laamrichi.
Production executive : Rashid Mhani
Salah Eddine
Production designer : Dahman
Dirctor of Photogarphy : Mohammed Belmiloudi
Co-ordination : Tehami Sertali
Production : SNRT



الاسم بالاتينية اسم المدينة أو الجماعة عدد السكان (إحصاء 2004)
El Jadida الجديدة
144.440
Moulay Abdallah مولاي عبد الله
45.780
Sidi Bennour سيدي بنور
39.593
Azemmour ازمور
36.722
Haouzia حوزية
34.607
Laghnadra الغنادرة
32.091
Bouhmame بو حمام
30.540
Saniat Berguig سانية بركيك
30.286
Chtouka شتوكة
28.939
Sidi Ali Ben Hamdouche سيدي علي بنحمدوش
28.685
Oulad Hacine أولاد حسين
27.475
Mettouh متوح
25.587
Oulad Sbaita أولاد سبايتة
24.967
Sidi Ismail سيدي إسماعيل
24.569
Lgharbia الغربية
23.074
Oulad Ghanem ولاد غانم
22.342
Oulad Aïssa ولاد عيسى
21.779
Oulad Rahmoune
La ville constitue un centre urbain pour les communes avoisinantes de LAGHNADRA ,Ouled Sbaita ,Sania Berreguig ,Gharbia ,Oualidia ...

Shabka of Morocco

Un pour tous et tous pour un, telle est la devise des Shabkeur .Rien ne les arrêtent. Ils nous reviennent en force cette fois si en compagnie de l'une des voix élites marocaines (MERYEM BELMIR) dans un morceau intitulé "9essat Denya" .Cette chanson au rythme oriental et nostalgique met en propos un contenue directe et authentique. <9essat Denya> nous parle des différents milieux sociaux, les contraintes que vivent chaque personnes au sein de notre communauté. Ce single nous révèle le paradoxe qui envahi notre monde ou tout est antipathique : prospérité et misère. En écoutant « 9esat Denya » vous remarquerai que nos 5 jeunes hommes aussi minutieux qu’ils sont ne baissent pas les bras devant ces intolérances ne serai-ce que pour l’espoir de changer pour le mieux. Ecoutez et savourer ce single inédit qui s’aura réveillé en vous l’estime envers la vie. La sortie du clip du nouveau tube est prévue en début 2010 Inchallah. SHABKA, ce groupe formé de cinq membres a su séduire un large public et cela depuis leur début en l’an 2000.Avec un travail successive et acharné, ils affirment leur mérites. En exclusivité les SHABKA’S surgissent leur talent afin d’émettre une vibration d’extase. Manager du groupe SHABKA Otmane +212 6 61 30 82 93 www.shabka-fes.com communiqué de press-SHABKA