02/12/2024 - Jawad Rhalib follows a small village girl from the High Atlas fighting to pursue her studies, and thus paints the subtle portrait of a rural population and its challenges

After making a splash with his fiction feature Amal [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jawad Rhalib
film profile], which addressed the stakes faced by a teacher confronted with the question of freedom of expression, Jawad Rhalib returns to the documentary format, a genre in which he has distinguished himself several times with films such as El Ejido, The Law of Profit or When Arabs Danced [+see also:
trailer
film profile]. In his new film Since I Was Born [+see also:
interview: Jawad Rhalib
film profile], which premiered at Brussels' Cinemamed, he deepens a research field he’d already approached in Fadma: Even Ants Have Wings [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]. Indeed, he returns to the High Atlas, to a small village cut off from almost everything, where access to education is a daily struggle for children in general and for little girls in particular.

There, he follows Zahira, in her last year of primary school, who faces a crucial choice for her future: whether or not to continue her studies. In school, her teacher does all she can to give children an appetite for learning and nourish their dreams for the future. But in the village, opinions differ. Divided by the unspoken rules that prevail in this micro-society, women and men discuss separately. While the women perceive with real lucidity both the reality of becoming a woman and the need to take charge of the daily logistics in the community, the men remind everyone of the economic value of young children’s domestic work and fear that the example of one of them could give others desires of escape. Rhalib films these conversations as a dialectic exposing the stakes related to these questions, with contradictory opinions emerging little by little and without judgement.

Often hidden in the shadows, Zahira listens, interprets and digests the adults’ opinions to feed her own convictions. The film is the story of her emancipation but also of her fight together with her father who, despite his initial reluctance, agrees to go against the majority opinion to send his daughter to study, but who highlights the fact that this gesture must be understood as an investment. Zahira becomes his bet on the future – the future of the family will rest on her shoulders.

A portrait of Zahira, who fights against the house arrest promised by the territorial and social challenges that define her village, Since I Was Born makes one feel the lengthy time by which the villagers live through a contemplative approach that takes the time to see the seasons go by – and natural time catches up with it a final time when the terrible earthquake that devastated the region in September 2023 overtakes the end of the story. By shining a light on the brutal reality of these rural populations, the earthquake contributes finally to making Zahira’s fate an exception, but also a source of hope, a possible example of emancipation through education.

Since I Was Born was produced by R&R Production (Belgium and Morocco), as well as Scope Pictures (Belgium). International sales are handled by Belgian Docs.

(Translated from French)