Puisque je suis née

Thirteen-year-old Zahira is at a pivotal moment in her life, but she doesn’t hold all the keys to shape it herself. In a remote village in Morocco’s Al Haouz province, the question of girls’ education sparks debate and reveals deeper tensions. Through Zahira, filmmaker Rhalib Jawad gains access to the village’s many voices, collecting life stories and unravelling the layered complexities of this micro-society. Gradually, the film opens onto a broader reflection on the place of women in these isolated and conservative communities of the Atlas Mountains. Caught between tradition and modernity, between the transmission of ancestral knowledge and the weight of long-held customs, between desire and fear — and between the hopes we hold for ourselves and those we pass on to the next generation — the people speak with clarity, freedom, and dignity. At the heart of it all is Zahira, a luminous, courageous and seemingly unstoppable heroine… until reality intervenes. The devastating earthquake of 2023 will rewrite not only the course of her life, but the course of the film itself.
Anne Delseth