Hassan Hajjaj’s first memories of photography are from his childhood in Morocco. His mother would occasionally dress him in clothes sent from his father in England, cover him in perfume and take the whole family to the local photography studio for a family portrait. Then there were the street photographers in Lamache, the harbour town […]
‘O Grande Kilapy’ (“The Great Kilapy” — ‘kilapy’ is Kimbundu for ‘scheme’, or ‘fraud’), the new film by director Zézé Gamboa, portrays the last decade of Portuguese rule in Angola through the story of Joao Fraga (played by Lazaro Ramos): The film’s facebook page has some clips. Also check this production video for the images […]
Last week, the Spanish site, Periodismohumano, broke the news of the fifty-four men and women deported from Madrid to the Democratic Republic of Congo. After three years of struggle, hunger strikes, and protests, forty-three men and women were transferred from the CETI (a temporary processing center for immigrants) in Melilla to the CIE (the immigrants’ detention center) in Algeciras and finally to Aluche, the CEI in Madrid. It sounds like a dream come true: arrival on the Peninsula, with the hope of living freely in a country whose regulations prohibit random deportation to their country of origin.
Vanessa Branson stands, hands on hips, her loosely hanging skirt tails give her the figure of a Western women making modest concessions to the predictable inquisitive gaze of an Arabic polis. Her trainers are burnished gold — a playful note — and what you wouldn’t be forgiven for calling “ethnic jewellery” is slung around her […]
The new video for the song “Alf Hilat” by Moroccan lute player and singer Aziz Sahmaoui (he made his name playing jazz with the late Joe Zawinul), off ‘University of Gnawa’, his album (it came out late 2011) of “African” sufi devotional music from the border regions of Morocco and Algeria.
An interview with Aaron Elkaim, a documentary photographer based in Toronto, whose photo-essay “Exodus” explores the remains of the Jewish communities in Morocco.
A sample of some of TV commercials, including ones I have spotted online, made specifically for the 2012 African Cup of Nations football tournament.
The Africa Cup of Nations (CAN) kicked off on Saturday, and things are already getting pretty interesting. Tunisia have beaten Morocco 2-1 last night. With Morocco being one of the favorites in the tournament, the win was unexpected and even Tunisia’s coach Sami Trebelsi admitted to being “surprised” at the “standard of play” by the North African nation. Perhaps the team’s rigor can be attributed to the national pride that has come with their recent revolution, which triggered the events that eventually became the Arab Spring.
