On a stormy night, while the mother gives birth to her baby Aisha in the farm bedroom, her husband helps a sheep to give birth to her ewe in the farm barn. When both the mother and the sheep push out her baby at the same time, the storm stops and the screams of the baby and the bleating of the ewe fill the silence. Meanwhile, the mother cuts the umbilical cord because the father is busy.
Seventeen years later, on a quiet Thursday evening in the farm’s bathroom, the mother cuts a few strands of Aicha’s hair while the latter memorizes some paragraphs from the philosophy subject in preparation for the baccalaureate exam she will take the next morning (these paragraphs consist of quotations taken from the theories of Pierre Bourdieu, Mohammed Arkoun and Sigmund Freud). After the mother finishes cutting, Aicha stops memorizing. The mother rubs the mixture of henna and soap on Aicha’s skin, then removes her clothes and heads to the shower of the bathroom decorated with Moroccan mosaics. She then begins to scrub the latter’s body with a Moroccan bag. Meanwhile, the mother and daughter talk about various topics while listening to the radio.
After finishing her exams the following Friday morning, Aisha heads to the beach for a swim to celebrate the end of the school year. She passes by a mosque on the way to the entrance to perform the funeral prayer. The voice of the Friday preacher is heard on the loudspeaker and she is distracted. She accidentally steps on a dead mouse. Aisha lies on her back on the warm sand enjoying the sunshine, but she feels a sharp pain in her abdomen due to her menstrual cramps that have suddenly started. She jumps into the warm sea water to clean herself and calm her body. Unfortunately, while floating on the ocean (far from the coastline), she meets her unfortunate fate when a fisherman approaches her to brutally rape her on board the boat. The fisherman throws Aicha on the beach after finishing with her.
Two weeks after the rape, a religious mortician prepares with Aicha’s mother for the ritual washing of the latter’s body. During the washing, various news is heard on the radio, including statistics on baccalaureate results, the drought in Morocco, and news of Aicha’s suicide with rat poison after being forced to marry her rapist (while she was a minor) by her guardian.
A few weeks after Aicha’s death, the mother joins the spiritual healing night of the Gnawa. During this ritual, a sheep is slaughtered to be given to the “Jawad” or spirits while the mother falls into a deep ecstasy of crying and screaming under the intense Gnawa music (and under the influence of losing her daughter) as she lies on the ground next to the sheep. The Slaughtered.
The rites of Aicha's mother, her bath, the washing of her body, her rape and the Gnawa night proceed in parallel and in a coherent narrative in a non-linear chronological order.
Cast :
Hind Dafer
Mustapha Rachdi
Mohammed Amin
Manal
Aicha is written and directed by Sanaa El Alaoui
Associate producer : Allal El Alaoui
producer : Piotr catharovski
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