Moroccan director Asmae El Moudir’s Don’t Let the Sun Go Up on Me, which won the Eurimages New Lab Outreach Award in CPH:DOX Industry, offers insights into her deeply personal and ambitious documentary. El Moudir spoke to Cineuropa about the origins of the film, rooted in years of intimate observation and archival material, its hybrid cinematic language blending documentary and poetic storytelling, and how the award will support the project’s path towards international audiences and an expanded impact beyond the festival circuit. The new film by the director of The Mother of All Lies, winner of the Un Certain Regard Directing Prize and the Golden Eye in Cannes 2023, is being produced by El Moudir herself for Insight Films in co-production with Emma Lepers for Haut et Court Doc and Monica Hellström for Ström Pictures, along with Lofoten Films and Quijote Films.

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Cineuropa: Can you share some more details about Don’t Let the Sun Go Up on Me – what inspired the project, and what makes it stand out?
Asmae El Moudir: The project was born of a chance encounter. In 2017, I walked into a small photo lab in Rabat to take an ID picture. Instead, I met Habib and discovered his daughter, Fatimazahra, and their nocturnal world. That moment stayed with me. Between 2017 and 2023, I began filming their daily lives, their celebrations, conversations, dreams and fears. Through this long-term immersion, I came to understand not only the medical reality of the “Children of the Moon”, but also the social and emotional isolation they face. What moved me the most was their resilience – the way they transform constraint into freedom, and darkness into a space of imagination and connection. This is a story I have been carrying around for eight years. What makes it stand out is this tension between reality and something almost mythical. Their lives naturally evoke a kind of romantic dimension – full of love, loss, desire and impossible dreams – yet everything you see is real.

Where are you in the production process right now, and what are the next big steps for you?
I’m currently deep in pre-production for the first part of the shoot, which will take place in Morocco in April 2026, alongside the Children of the Moon. The second part of the film will be shot in Norway, on the Lofoten Islands, in December 2026, during the polar night. This location is central to the story; it represents both a real and a symbolic destination, tied to a dream that one of the main protagonists was never able to fulfil. We will begin editing between the shoots.

How has your experience at CPH:INDUSTRY shaped the journey of the project? Any key takeaways?
CPH:INDUSTRY was a very important moment for the project. We presented early images through a trailer we worked on very intensively, combining archival footage, observational material and visual experiments. What struck me the most was the reaction. Many people told us they were surprised, or even shocked, by the cinematic power of the images, especially within a documentary context. That kind of feedback was very encouraging because it confirmed that the movie’s visual language could carry the emotional and narrative complexity of the story. It also helped us understand how the project resonates internationally, and gave us confidence in pushing this hybrid form, between documentary and a more poetic, almost fictional dimension, further.

Winning the Eurimages New Lab Outreach Award is a major milestone. How do you plan to use this support to bring the movie to a wider audience?
This support allows us to think about the life of the film beyond festivals and traditional distribution. We are developing a targeted impact campaign designed to extend the feature’s resonance into broader social contexts. We plan to work with NGOs, health institutions and educational networks to organise special screenings and discussions around themes such as visibility, rare diseases and grief. The film can become a tool for dialogue, awareness and connection. At the same time, we are building a distribution strategy that combines festival exposure, theatrical releases, strong international sales and impact-driven outreach. This multi-layered approach will allow the movie to travel widely, reach different audiences and remain present over time.

Do you have an estimate for when audiences might get to experience the film?
Our goal is to premiere it in 2027, ideally at the Cannes Film Festival. In the meantime, the focus is on completing the shoots in Morocco and Norway, and then entering the editing process, which will be a crucial stage for shaping the final form of the film. This is a project that has grown over many years, and my ambition is to honour the people who entrusted me with their story, while creating a film that resonates far beyond their community.