HOW TO REVERSE A SPELL: THE PROMISE OF AN ARCHIVE
video
Year: 2022
How to reverse a spell: the promise of an archive is a speculative triptych that traverses the disappearance and erasure of the Moroccan public archives and their colonial displacement. Frames waiting for their images, videos once stolen of a colonized people, a solar flare waiting to happen for everything to be restituted. The film is a call for access to our archives and their restitution from past colonizers, attempting, through the fabric of internet and lo-fi images, to reverse the colonial spell and make the videos appear again. Not asking for the right to use these images that were once stolen and smuggling them instead is an act of refusal and an act of return.
Best Experimental Short Film award, Sharjah Film Platform, Sharjah Art Foundation
“Memories in Strife” screening at Wekalet Behna/SAVVY Contemporary
“Make History: Filed and Concealed “screening at Jameel Arts Centre
“Video night” at Le Cube Independent Art Room, Rabat, Morocco
Network of Alternative Arab Screens (NAAS) and Sharjah Film Circulation Initiative: Tiro Art (Tyre, Lebanon); Fédération Tunisienne des Ciné-Clubs (Tunisia); Cairo Animation School (Egypt); Yabous Cultural Centre - Al Quds Cinema (Jerusalem, Palestine)
Beyond The Seventh Gate: Contemporary Moroccan artists’ moving image, Glasgow Short Film Festival, Scotland
SAAED Meetings, Marrakech, Morocco
“How to Reverse a Spell” group exhibition at Lehmann Contemporary, Porto, Portugal