House in the Fields
Fall Grants 2016 - Post-Production Stage
Tala Hadid / Feature Documentary / Morocco, Qatar / 2017 / 86 min / Colour / Original Language: Amazigh / Interests: Coming of age, Creative Documentary
Synopsis
High in the Atlas Mountains in Morocco, life in an isolated rural Amazigh community has changed little over the past millennium. History is passed down the generations orally, transmitted by traditional bards and storytellers. Filmmaker Tala Hadid gained intimate access to this community, as well as their trust, in her quest to document their daily lives in visual form, thereby preserving a moment in a culture that is constantly faced with the rapid changes of the larger society in which it exists.
‘House in the Fields’ primarily follows two teenage sisters. In a nation that has recently made steps forward in providing equal rights for women, Khadija dreams of becoming a lawyer one day, while her elder sister Fatima has stopped attending school pending her upcoming marriage. A languid camera captures the sisters’ conversations as they discuss the possibilities and likelihoods of the future, as we wonder what the impact of social progress will be on centuries of embedded culture. Daily life in the village is mostly a matter of survival, with tending to crops and gathering food being a constant; how do these youngsters hopes for the future mesh with such an apparently simple existence?
Credits
- Director
- Tala Hadid
- Producer
- Tala Hadid, Larbi Idmansour
- Executive Producer
- Joslyn Barnes, Sawsan Asfari, Maya Sanbar
- Production Company
- Kairos Films
About the Director
Tala Hadid’s work has screened at festivals around the world, including the Berlin International Film Festival and the Venice Film Festival and, among other venues, at the Museum of Modern Art and the Lincoln Center in New York City, the Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis, the Cinémathèque Française in Paris and the Photographer’s Gallery in London. Her films have received numerous awards, among them an Academy Award. Hadid’s ‘House in the Fields’ had its premiere at the Berlinale.
Awards and Festival History
Festivals
Berlinale 2017, Forum - Nominated for the Glasshütte Award (WP)
Hot Docs Int’l Film Festival 2017
Festival de Cine Africano in Tarifa and in Madrid, Spain
Museum’s Margaret Meade Festival 2017, American Museum of Natural History (NYC)
Best Feature Film Award, Cinema Africano, Asia e Latin American in Milano, Italy
Best Documentary Award, Hong Kong IFF 2017, Documentary Competition
Grand Prize, Millennium Docs Against Gravity Film Festival 2017
Special Prize, FIDADOC Agadir, Morocco