Nora Fatehi born February 6, 1992 in Toronto, Canada, is a Canadian-Moroccan dancer, model, actress, singer and producer known for her work in the Indian film industry.
Ranveer Singh is an Indian Bollywood actor. He enjoyed success from his first film, Band Baaja Baaraat. In a very short time, he became a real star and starred in commercial successes like Ladies vs Ricky Bahl or critical successes like Lootera.
Finished with those gaudy and strange movies in India named the masala films (1) ,New Indian cinema lightens the world with its beautiful stars and show-business and even locally Moroccan bollyphiles are continuously becoming more Hindi fans than ever, writes ALLAL EL ALAOUI .
Arrived at the Golden hotel which faces a rising millinum town of Morocco called Salé (2) , Bina Paul a south Indian woman of Kerala, which is a magical place in Asia said to me why Salé film festival has not chosen an Indian film for competition this year 2006. Bina Paul is an artistic director and member of Kerala International film festival in the south of india . She came to Salé to become a member of jury of the international women film festival .
Salé was famous of her cinema theatres such as Collisé, El Malaki and opera . Although some of them were used as cinéclubs in the seventies especially the Opera theatre for cultural reasons and also for the promotion of cinema and cinemagoers ,animated by Nour Eddine Sail himself (3) , other cinemas just could not resist to project Indian movies just like Dosti and Mother India By Mahoob . Just after independence named proudly, the goden age,Hindi films were dubbed into Moroccan slang(Arabic) by local pioneer artists namely Ibrahim Essaih (4) , Hamidoo ; Said Bachir and others.
Ibrahim Essaih was right to dubb indian movies that time, because the
majority of the Moroccans were analphabets . Local Rabat intellectuals keep
making pressure on Moroccan governement to increase the budget for cultural purpuses.Yet,movies were nationally done in a shy manner, 2 films per year until the recent fund policy,which CCM, the national center of cinema has made ;14 to 30 fims per year.
Hindi cinema has been a major point of reference for Indian culture in this century. It has shaped and expressed the changing scenarios of modern India to an extent that no preceding art form could ever achieve. Hindi cinema has influenced the way in which people perceive various aspects of their own lives. With one mighty leap, Bollywood has gone from melodrama to youthful reality, reports Kevin Maher,The Times journalist In England.It is true that filmmakers in India have been plagiaristic to the extent that even Hollywood would remake Munnabhai MBBS and becomes Gangsta MD ;an American movie by Chris Tucker. The seven Samurai by Akira kurasawa became Sholay in 1975 by Bollywood legend Ramesh Sippy .
Thanks to Ismail Noormohamed Abdul-Rehman , known as Ismail Merchant, indian cinema becomes worldwild and because of his great talent as a producer and director , every good actor in the west would love to work with him . This man sells dreams of elegance and beauty, of dignity and propriety, of literate splendour and intellectual stature and above all, of traditional reverence and venerable taste,Lubna aziz writes on Al Ahram weekly.This seems contrary to the thoughts of Moulay Driss Jaiidi ,a local cinema critic who states that Hindi movies have bad taste on Moroccan cinemagoers .
Unlike CIFF , Cairo International film festival and carthage film festival , FIFM,the International film festival in Marrakesh, focuses only on European and American cinema and badly to Asiatic films , It is time that Grand Maghreb mainly Morocco, because of its arising bollyphiles who watch nearly 80 new indian films per year out of 350 imported films , confirmed to me by Kamal Mghazli, an employee of CCM, Moroccan national center of cinema based in Rabat spearheaded by Nour eddine Sail. India now is one of the largest film producing nations in the world, with 1,013 films in 2001 and some 4.5 billion rupees in revenues in 2000 through exports, films are subject to various taxes (entertainment tax, new taxation release tax, show tax and property tax).
Interviewed with a house of film distribution , Amal films, a distributing house based in casablanca has stated that although the prevailing of CDs and DVDs , Bollywood cinema remains poweful in consuming and still welcomed in Morocco and especially now television holding SNRT and 2M are interested to diffuse films such as DEVDAS , LAGAAN and VEER-ZAARA highly praised by international critics around the world. I don’t know what Moulay Driss Jaiidi says about recent statistics of Bollywood Box office made by CCM that in 2003 Morocco imported 378 Hindi films , the number of fans were 3 783602 and ticket revenues were 36101026. Although CCM confirms that these stastics are not fully complete , but in 2006 up to june we had 264 Hindi films and ticket revenues were 581800.
Moulay Dris Jaiidi would love to see these numbers increasing in other cinema importations just like US hollywood and french cinema , but at least we could be honest and realistic to the Moroccan Bollyphiles.
Sometimes ships don’t head for the direction it wants , even in America and very often, Oscar nominees and winners are selected on the basis of considerations other than strictly artistic merit. This means, good cinema suffers, writes Gataman Bhaskaran. Prabably we won’t see any Hindu film being selected on competition this year in Marrakech 2006 just because there are still some constipated mentalities that favor American and Eureopean films than any good indian films . FIFM, bureau de la fondation (5) should think this matter seriously about Bollywood cinema because apparently the cinemagoers and producers already think of Morocco as a magical place to shoot future films instead of making them in Swisland .This European country makes heavy taxes on commecials films favored by the legendary producer Mukesh Bhatt (6) . Besides, Morocco is still open to all Indian producers to work by showing easy policy to show-business .CCM has now two recorded clips ,one is NAACH produced by Varma corporation limited,shot around Tangiers, Marrakesh,Agadir ,Essaouira and the second is HALKI NEEND/SARU produced by Corner pocket films ,shot in Marrakesh ans Essaouira .
Quentin taratino and Micheal moore , famous and respected filmmakers in America ,encourage to pirate their films, unlike Amitabh Bachchan, a mega-star and ambassador of IIFA ; international indian film academy , disagrees about hacking films and resumes that this matter becomes a major problem and it is difficult to solve . thanks to Free market and Internet, cinephiles now enjoy to have millions of good films with good quality at home including the Indian ones.However, CCM locally keeps an eye on outlaw CD and DVD dealers Derb Rallef (7) in casablanca and swika (8) in Rabat ,and recently CCM Have ceised 400,000 CDS and DVDS containing all new hacked genres of International cinema including Bollywood films. CCM intends to fight against films hackers and hopefully cinema theatres will be open again.
Salé itself suffers a lot of cinema theatres being closed including Dawliz complexes (9) owned by a Moroccan filmmaker,Souhail Ben Barka. Now, in Salé there is only one cinema open , found in a popular ghetto called EL WAD (10) . This cinema theatre is called Hollywwod and ironically accepts only bollywood movies.
Salé women festival was unlucky this year to have an indian film in competition but it could have thought only one of those three womenish films that deal with ‘ modern feminism’ in India traditions namely Mohra 1994, Mother India, made in 1957 by Mehboob and Mirch Masala, made in 1989 by Ketan Mehta. Unlike Amitath Bachan who works on commercial films Jaya Bachchan, his wife ,participates only in serious films ; starring in Satyajit Ray's Mahanagar (The Big City 1963), who is influenced by Neo-realism cinema « Pather Panchali » .This type of cinema is called art films in India which is more stylish treating human conditions, and is similar to the cinema d’auteur in Europe. No doubt that Nair Mair a filmmaker installed in America , famous of her , « Salaam Mumbay » and now with her latest film « Namesake » wakes up America and Europe to recognize the potential of Indian cinema.
Indian Cinema has always been loved by Moroccan cinemagoers and bollyphiles and even since its early start with legendary Dhundiraj Govind Phalke (1870 - 1944) affectionately called Dadasaheb Phalke is considered as the 'father of Indian Cinema'. Central in Phalke's career as a filmmaker was his fervent belief in the nationalistic philosophy of swadeshi, which advocated that Indians should take charge of their own economy in the perspective of future Independence.This was confirmed to me by the most respected filmmaker Yash Shopra who was in Marrakech in 2005 with his wife, Pamela Chopra . Going around Marrakeshi souks and suburbs especially the Jamaa el Fna (11) square, Yash shopra said how amazed and astonished he was by the Moroccan people and its traditions that really has great affinity with the ones in India. Both India and Pakistan Should be grateful for the symbolic union that gathers these two countries through VEERZAARA By Yash Shopra.It is an outstanding drama which tries to break the barriers separating two lovers, Veer Patra Sing (Shahrukh kan) and a Pakistani woman , Zarra Hayaat Khan (Preity Zinta). When he projected his film at Berlin film festival, Yash Shopra was scared that the people would not understand the story , However ,at the end of the film, he saw people crying. The presence of Aishwarya Rai in Marrakesh , a former Miss World and Bollywood’s first genuine cross-over icon, , lightened Marrakech with her beauty and let all Marrakeshi young men eyes wild open. These artists are well honored by the Moroccan people and FIFM,the international film festival in Marrakesh. Morrocco now became known in Mumbay and the majority of Bollywood stars would love to come to this country.
Not far from Agadir, Las Palmas , a spanish litttle island, is overcrowded with indians and enjoyed the double culture there. Indians have immigrated to every corner of the globe with contingencies in South Africa, the Gulf countries, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, US, Canada apart from the UK. Wherever the Indians go, their films and their food go with them. With curry and chutney now international favourite foods, it was inevitable that their exotic films, their melodies, the romantic strains of their sitar, the striking beauty of their leading ladies and the dark and daring magnetism of their dashing heroes would eventually reach the hearts of the West despite all of Rudyard Kipling's poetic protests, reports Lubna Abdel Aziz, from Cairo Al Ahram weekly . Of course, he did not know then the strength and might of the Seventh Art, which proved to be the best meeting ground for East, West, North and South.
Many critics in Morocco would immeditaly judged Indian cinema as an emotional cinema which only seeks imposssible love, and therefore damages the taste with its chosen six songs and pharonic scenes and yet praised and admired by others just like Razak, a Hindu fan and film critic who is illuminated by its new wave , indepentent anti-studio cinema , pioneered by Madhur Bhandarkar .Razak continiously makes local cinephiles more aware about Indian cinema using his power as a wonderful plume .He writes how exquisite , beautiful and magnificanctly arising and yet glorifying world wild Hindi cinema is.He also predicted in his RABAT EXPRESS newspaper that « BLACK » of Sanjay Leela Bhansali with Amitabh Bachchan and Rani Mukherjee as best actor and actresse ,would win an Oscar in Dubai during IIFA film festival this year 2006.His prophecy became true in the United Arab of Emirates last june during IIFA ceremony in Dubai. By the way, the Arab world is also fascinated by this genre of Cinema .Whenever you go, Bollywood movies prevail in popular theatres, for example ,Cairo,casablanca and Dubai cinemas are full with bollywood fans, and you can hardly find your ticket. Now resoursefully, people in Mumbay listen carefully to European cinephiles who admire latest of Sanjay Leela Bhansali « BLACK » because simply of its new style without using songs and exotic scenes.
Ideas like creating an agency that deals only with Bollywood films and Wizcraft artistic communications becomes a wish not only for Razak , Ahmed
Sijilmassi but also for Abdelillah Al Jawhari and Allal El Alaoui (12) . Those tink-tanks see that it is time to sit down, and dicuss continuous meeetings where film distributers, producers and fimmakers tackle mechanism and the future of Indian cinema.
Since the The first film in Southern India was made in 1916 by R Nataraja Mudaliar- Keechaka Vadham, the hindu wish to impose their style of making cinema . Now thanks to wizcraft agency, India’s first and premier event management and entertainment agency, pioneered by Wiz Andre Timmins , Wiz Viraf Sarkari , Wiz Sabbas Joseph . These men are giving power to IIFA to become more world class ceremony.
- 2000 : London,United Kingdom.
- 2001 : Sun City,South Africa.
- 2002 :Genting Highlands, Malaysia.
- 2003 :Johannsbourg,South Africa.
- 2004 :Songapore.
- 2005 :Amsterdam,The Netherlands.
- 2006 :Dubai,UAE.
-
Morocco has,alas, missed this year 2006 appointement, but rumours say that 2008 IIFA awards will be one hundred per cent Moroccan . This pushes Yorkshire to swiftly call for IIFA festival to be held in its land.So, Lata Mangeshkar, a Guiness record holder, Mukesh, Mahmood Rafi and Kishore, will sing Godlike lyrics to beautify British souls . Yorkshire lads and birds including five millions Asians would enjoy beautiful movies when they would put the kettle on.
Yorkshire then hosts IIFA , the international Indian film academy awards , oscar-style and is backed by brillant staff of Yorkshire tourist Board whose chairman is Judith Donovan including members of YTB such as Sir Thomas Ingilby , Colin Brown , Zulfi Karim, Cllr. Carl Les and others .They already mise-en – scene the platform of the seventh edition festival already called – Love at first sight.
Surely the seventh edition of the IIFA festival will shake cinema lovers and bollyphiles around the globe especially Yorkshire plays the leading cultural link between the fiveth continent. Stratford -upon - even where William shakespeare is born ; a few kilometres from quintessential Yorkshire towns where the festival will be held , Richmond Old theatre eighteen century and the glittering town Leeds ,these local cultual treasures of Yorkshire will be seen and honored.
Famous personality & Celebrities will invade British Islands mainly Amitah Bachan, Karishma Kapoor, Aamir Khan, Kajol, Madhuri Dixit and Shah Ruhk Khan who reports on himself ‘I have created a myth. Sometimes I think of myself in the third person – I’m ‘the’ Shah Rukh Khan now. He’s a brand of his own. It’s not me any more. Now a myth is created. This is what my films have created. That myth can be called King Khan.’ Yorkshire expects millions and millions of tourists from around the world. The event is expected to boost tourism income across the region by nearly 10 million pounds. The inaugural IIFA awards event was held at London's Millennium Dome in 2000. The summer of 2007 is also expected to attract nearly 30,000 people from Europe, India, southeast Asia and the US, and signifies the exalted status the Indian film industry has attained in Britain.
FIFM bureau de la fondation, CCM (13) and house distibution in Morocco should consider and give importance and value to Hindi cinema and especially the taste of passionate Moroccan people who just love this cinema. In academic circles here, LA Times (14) reports that Indian films are no longer seen as quaint, gaudy and oriental items, but a resilient cultural powerhouse in the subcontinent that challenges the near-global domination of Hollywood films.
Muqtedar Khan (15) writes that India is already well situated to become a major economic and cultural power worldwide. Indian culture, through the popularity of Indian cinema, is already giving India the kind of "soft power" that only America enjoys worldwide.
Bina paul will never forget Salé and its traditions . With her digital camera , she took pitures of women tatooing their hands with El Hana, a spiritual herb also used in India for the same purpose.She carefully took notes of those women making their spiritual journeys to Marabouts (16) . This reminds Bina of her people doing the same pilgrimage not of course to Marabouts, but to cinema theatres where they expect good endings eternel heroes , widows and homeless children.
Coming out from El Madrassa al Bouanania (17), bina paul amazed by its marvellous Islamic frisks , remembered her colleague filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan from Kerala saying that India has always been an immence bazar of images .
By ALLAL EL ALAOUI
Zhor idrissi : secretariat.
• International women cinema in salé.
• Centre national de la cinematographie.
• www.CCM.ma.
• Noureddine sail ( CCM ).
• Kamal Mghazli ( CCM ).
• Ahmed Araib ( CCM ).
• Razak ,( rabat express).
• Al ahram weekly .
• Lubna aziz from al ahram weekly.
• Le monde diplomatique.
• The times, UK.
• LA TIMES.
•
1- the masala films : The 1970s saw the advent of the multi-generic entertainment extravaganza replete with dramatic dialogue and spectacular song and dance sequences.
2- SALÉ : A millinuim town in Morocco .
3- Nour Eddine Sail is a Moroccan thinker and cinema critic and head of the main cinema institution of cinema called CCM.
4- Ibrahim Essaih is a Moroccan Indian film dubber . He was the pioneer of dubbing Hindi films after the independence.
5- FIFM bureau de la fondation is an institution in Morocco that organizes International film festival.
6- Mukesh Bhatt is film producer in India.
7- Derb Rallef is a popular market in casablanca where one can find any goods.
8- Swika is a popular market in Rabat .
9- Dawliz complexe is a Place of entertainement, restaurants and luxuary cinemas in Salé .
10- EL Wad : a dangerous Ghetto in the north of Salé .
11- Jamaa el Fna square : one of the most famous entertainemnt souk in Marrakesh ( see UNESCO) .
12- Razak, Ahmed Sijilmassi, Al Jawhari and Allal El Alaoui ; Cinéphiles and intellectuals ,on line free-writers and especially Indian movie fans and critics .
13- CCM is a national institution of cinema that is strictly administratif dealing with distribution , Film visas , festivals and co-ordinations
14- LA Times : Los Angels Journal in America .
15- Dr.Muqtedar Khan is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Delaware.
16- Marabout is a spiritual leader or saint in Morocco.
17- El Madrassa al Bouanania is an old medieval univeristy in Salé famous of its superb arabisque frisks and mosaique.
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