“Overcoming Oblivion” brings together three key North African films which impose the subjective power of indigenous oral culture onto the disingenuous objectivity of the image. Through popular poetry or storytelling, all three films aim to “decolonise the screen.” **

Preceded by a brief presentation by AWAL and followed by a discussion, this second out of two sessions features Ahmed Bouanani's “Mirage” (1979, Morocco, 100 min.). This fiction recounts the story of a peasant couple who, after finding a million dollars in a bag of flour, attempt to exchange it only to find themselves sinking into a macabre city dominated by thieves and fake saints. An allegory for growing class consciousness, "Mirage" was a crucial film in the development of a new Moroccan cinema looking to find its own language and aesthetics.

‍