House in the Fields

by Tala Hadid

Synopsis

House in the Fields is a film that examines the life of an isolated rural Amazigh community in the south- west region of the High Atlas Mountains.

The thousand-year history of the Amazigh in Morocco has been, for the most part, recounted, preserved and transmitted by bards and storytellers in oral form among Tamazight speaking pastoral communities. House in the Fields continues this tradition of transmission, in an audiovisual form, in an attempt to faithfully document and present a portrait of a village and community that has remained unchanged for hundreds of years despite being confronted with the rapidly changing sociopolitical realities of the country at large.

The film follows the lives’ of certain villagers, most specifically two teenage sisters, one who must give up school to prepare for her wedding, and the other who dreams of being a lawyer.

House in the Fields is the first part of a triptych set in Morocco, that starts in the Atlas Mountains, journeys through Casablanca and finishes beyond the borders.

Specifications

Morocco/Qatar creative documentary 2017 86mn 1.85:1 5.1 Amazigh

Original title: Tigmi N Igren

Cinematographer / Editor

Tala Hadid

Produced by

Tala Hadid, Larbi Idmansour

Co-produced by

Umaru Embalo, Tommaso Cammarano

Executiver Producers

Joslyn Barnes, Sawsan Asfari, Maya Sanbar

Associater producers

Lisa Kleiner Chanoff

Sound

Thomas Robert (Sound Editor) Jean-Guy Véran (Sound Mixer)

Filmography

2014 Itar el Layl / The Narrow Frame of Midnight (Morocco/France/UK/Qatar) – Best film and critics prize Tangier Film Festival, Best film and audience award Minneapolis Mizna Festival, Telia prize nomination Stockholm Film festival

2006 Tes Cheveux Noirs Ihsan / Your Dark Hair Ihsan (Morocco) – Kodak Prize, Academy Award (Oscar)
Panorama best film award, Berlin

2001 Windsleepers (Russia)

2000 Kodaks

1996 Sacred Poet: a portrait of Pier Paolo Pasolini (Italy/France)

Festivals & Awards

2017

67th Berlinale Official Selection – Forum – Nominated for the Glasshütte award – Best Documentary Competition
Milano, Italy – Cinema Africano, Asia e Latin American – Best Feature Film Award
Hong Kong – Competition – Best Documentary Award
HotDocs Canada, Competition
Festival de Cine Africano in Tarifa and in Madrid, Spain
FIDADOC Agadir, Morocco – Special Prize
Millennium Docs Against Gravity Film Festival, Poland – Grand Prize
Odessa FF, Ukraine
Oran Arab FF, Algeria
Lessinia FF, Italy
Camden International Film Festival, USA – John Marshall Award (Best Feature)
Bergen FF, Norway
Namur FF, Berlgium
New Cinema Film Festival, Montreal, Canada
Margaret Mead FF, NY
Walker Arts Center, MN, USA
Cinemed, France – Competition – Special Mention
Viennale, Austria
Rabat FF, Morocco
Doha FF, Qatar
Cairo FF, Egypt
IDFA – Dutch Premiere – Best of Fest – Camera in Focus

2018

Films de Femmes, Créteil, France – Section Rendez-vous
Tangiers, Morocco – Special jury prize & the editing prize
Tétouan, Morocco – Grand Prize
Festival Cinéma Méditerranéen de Bruxelles – MeDoc : les films documentaires

Press Quotes

Artistically outstanding (Der Spiegel)

A delicate work of quiet force that never transforms this lucid and melancholy chronicle with the weight of an explanatory manifesto, instead always remaining at the sensitive height of its models (La Septième Obsession)

…a small jewel… (CineClandestino)

extraordinarily faithful (…) illuminated by light (Sentieri Selvaggi)

Physical proximity and the visual beauty of images are also mobilized by the Moroccan filmmaker and photographer Tala Hadid in House in the Fields. (…) Nothing didactic in this journey, but a vibration that is made up of laughter, ideas, song and gestures of everyday life, something that is infinitely alive by being so precisely situated, a particular world, certainly not ideal, that is made so accessible to all. (Slate J ean-Michel Frodon of Cahiers du Cinéma)