The 25-minute short film "Aisha," produced in 2025 and directed by Polish-based Moroccan director Sanaa Alaoui, offers a bold treatment of the issue of rape from a human and spiritual perspective, avoiding direct rhetoric or melodrama.
The film revolves around a female undergraduate student who is subjected to physical abuse that disrupts the family unit. The tragedy becomes the starting point for a symbolic healing process led by the mother through Gnawa and Jazba rituals, in an attempt to restore her inner balance and rescue her daughter from the cycle of silence and shame.
We open the film to multiple reading levels. On the one hand, it raises the question of the body as a social and political space, and on the other, it invokes the Sufi dimension of Gnawa rituals as a form of symbolic resistance against pain. Music and rhythm transform into an alternative language to speech, where healing is manifested not only in the body but also in the soul, which acknowledges love after denial.
Through its intense visual language and use of light and color, "Aisha" highlights the intersection of violence and tenderness in a mother-daughter relationship, rethinking the concept of motherhood as an act of sacrifice and forgiveness. In this sense, the film represents a journey from darkness to light, from trauma to reconciliation, affirming that love, ultimately, is the deepest form of healing.
The films of the sixth day of the 25th edition of the Tangier National Film Festival confirm that Moroccan cinema is experiencing a period of artistic and intellectual maturity, where the veteran generation meets a new generation of creators in a shared search for a cinematic language that listens to the human being in both his weakness and his strength. From “The Blue Meadow” to “Aisha,” through “My Little One,” “The House of the High,” and “The Six-Month War,” a growing awareness of the importance of social and spiritual issues is evident in the formulation of a visual discourse that goes beyond entertainment to reflect and contemplate. It is a cinema that searches for the Moroccan self in the mirrors of reality and dreams, affirming that the path to light always leads through confronting shadows.
