20/05/2003 - Faouzi Bensaidi's directorial debut is a Franco-Belgian co-production about a little-known part of north-African history

Moroccan filmmaker Faouzi Bensaidi’s feature debut, Mille Mois explores a little-known aspect of Maroccan history. Mehdi, a 7-year-old boy, and his mother, Amina, move in with Amina’s father, Ahmed. The adults tell Mehdi that his father has gone to work in France: he is actually in prison. Mehdi is given the privilege at school of being promoted monitor, a role he takes very seriously and his jealous classmates turn against him. As if that were not enough, life in their village is getting tougher by the day: a severe drought is killing the crops.
This is one of the first Moroccan films to portray the intellectual repression that engulfed Morocco in the 80s. Bensaidi explores this thorny issue from the point of view of a family in the middle of Ramadan and the “thousand months” of the title refer to one night’s fast having the same value as a thousand months without nourishment.
Faouzi Bensaidi has directed several highly acclaimed short films including La falaise, Le Mur and Trajets, Mille Mois, his first feature-length title is full of poetry and delicately drawn and sensitive characters. Bensaidi’s use of the camera is discreet and almost without movement. In his portrayal of three generations of the same family, the filmmaker explores traditional culture, mores and behaviour. “I am interested in the imaginary dimensions of religion: the position it occupies in the daily lives of my characters, the ways in which it moulds their souls and their relationship with society. I love presenting the spectator with a path that seems well-marked, only to have him lose himself immediately. The centre is always moving and what initially appeared to be a margin becomes the magnet that draws everything else in only to disappear to other horizons.”
Mille Mois stars both professional actors and the inhabitants of the village and the film was produced by Laurent Lavolé and Isabelle Pragier (Gloria Films - France), Bénédicte Bellocq and Souad Lamriki (Agora Films – France) and Diana Elbaum of Entre Chien et Loup and will be distributed in Belgium by Cinéart with Fortissimo handling the international sales. Mille Mois will also compete for the Caméra d’Or.