20/04/2026 - Jérôme le Maire’s new documentary is a long-term project following in the footsteps of a nomadic Berber tribe driven away by progress

Jérôme le Maire has just presented his new film, The Price of the Sun, in Visions du Réel's International Competition. The documentary follows the unequal battle between a small Berber tribe and the introduction of the biggest renewable energy park in the world. The Belgian filmmaker is more than familiar with Morocco, having already shot two films in the country, namely Tea or Electricity in 2012, which scooped thirty or so international awards, and Où est l’amour dans la palmeraie? in 2006. Residing in the region for part of the year, the director was able to follow a group of shepherds from a Berber tribe living on the high desert plateau of Midelt over an extended period of time.

It all begins with Scope shots of these endless expanses, catapulting viewers into a western-style scene which initially seems deserted, populated by sheep and plagued by wind. Then, little by little, we see a shepherd, children, a camp, a family, an entire community who live in symbiosis with the sky and whose prime occupation is finding water. But these pastoral scenes are rudely interrupted by a machine amidst the landscape. And then a number of machines. Excavators, diggers, an office: soon, the electricity produced by this solar and wind park currently under construction will sustain upwards of four million people. As TV reports rejoice over this tremendous project, explosions resound throughout the desert. The waltz of turkeys is replaced by a waltz of lorries, the sound of wind by the sound of backhoe loaders. It’s the age-old fight between nature and culture, epitomised by the very specific image of two donkeys separated by a river of cement in the immensity of the desert. TV programmes extol the modernity of the project, but members of this community soon find they no longer have access to water, which has been ringfenced. Initially silent, the film now lends these people a voice, a voice which sounds as resigned as it is philosophical, as if imbued with the centuries-old practice of adaptation. And we start to think that progress in the desert feels more like a mirage…

With The Price of the Sun, Jérôme le Maire questions the price we pay for this new green gold-rush, in this instance the natural habitat of millennia-old populations whose resources are destroyed on the altar of progress and on the promise of wider accessibility to other resources. So, just like they’ve always done, these populations adapt and turn to what’s left to them: the sun, and lead. The film also shines a light on the impact of land dispossession brought about by colonisation, and the relative nature of the notion of “the common good”. The director’s use of Scope highlights the immensity of the particular theatre in which this centuries-old tragedy is unfolding, the outcome of which we’ve always known, but which those who are most affected talk about with a fatalism bordering on wisdom.

The Price of the Sun was produced by Clin d’oeil Films (Belgium) and Iota Production (Belgium), in co-production with Les Films d’ici (France) and K Films (France), alongside Magellan Films (Belgium) and Blue Birds Docs.

(Translated from French)