Casablanca, 1973: a director is preparing a shooting, but since he really wants to give new impetus to the cinema of his country, he roams the streets, asking passers-by what they think Moroccan cinema could and should be. He gets a bunch of contradictory answers, reflecting the many di erent people he speaks to. The members of the shooting crew have a discussion: they endeavour to elaborate the theory of an independent national cinema, between formal experimentation and social representation, cosmopolitan examples and rejection of the overwhelming gaze of France. But as they are scouting for locations, they find a fascinating young man, whose fate is to be decided when they are looking away. De quelques événements sans signification (About Some Meaningless Events) highlights both the insoluble contradictions of national cinema and the violence brought about by social deprivation. The film was immediately censored after a single screening in Paris in 1974, and for a long time, it was thought lost. Derkaoui establishes an aesthetic of long-focus lens, usually typical of documentary, to cloud the frame of reference as to the levels of reality in his film. The soundtrack and its wild free jazz, alongside rare images of violence, also ba es any unequivocal reading of the film. Because De quelques événements sans signification is really a criticism of the ambitions of cinema through the very weapons of cinema, a film that keeps asking the same question: what can a camera really do? (N.L.)
Mostafa Derkaoui
