On the Passing of Derkaoui: Moroccan Cinema's Enduring Questions

The death of director Mustafa Derkaoui at the age of 82 has prompted a deep reflection on the legacy and future of Moroccan cinema. His passing is seen not just as the loss of a filmmaker, but as a catalyst to question what remains of a cinematic project that once aimed to be a fusion of thought, image, and stance, rather than merely a quantitative output.

Derkaoui, who trained at Poland's Łódź Film School, had a multifaceted career encompassing directing, screenwriting, editing, production, and acting. He belonged to a generation that understood cinema as a complex form of knowledge before it became a technical function. His films, particularly 'Ayyam Shahrzad Al-Jamila' (Beautiful Shahrzad's Days) and 'Un Titre Provisoire' (A Provisional Title), offer insights into a period when cinematic inquiry was inseparable from broader questions about society, humanity, and the language of film itself.

In 'Ayyam Shahrzad Al-Jamila,' the narrative doesn't begin with a ready-made theme. Instead, it depicts filmmakers struggling to choose what is worthy of filming, eventually focusing on Aisha, a nightclub dancer dreaming of fame. This approach highlights Derkaoui's experimental method, which was not merely stylistic but a way to interrogate cinema's relationship with reality, questioning what to film, why, and who has the right to transform reality into images. This aligns with Andréi Tarkovsky's notion that art is born where there is an eternal, unquenchable thirst for the spiritual and the ideal, suggesting that images lose their necessity if they do not carry a deeper meaning.

The article contrasts Derkaoui's era with the present, noting that while Morocco produces more films today with better technical tools and support systems, the cinematic infrastructure is faltering. With 26 feature films produced in 2025 and significant funding allocated, the number of active cinema screens remains low at 87, with only 2.19 million tickets sold. This structural imbalance reveals a system that supports production but has not adequately developed spaces for viewership, criticism, training, and audience development. The author argues that cinema is not solely made by films but by the interplay of cinemas, criticism, academia, archives, film education, distribution, and visionary producers and technicians who understand the 'why' behind their craft. When links in this chain weaken, films become isolated events; when most links weaken, cinema devolves into production without a system, a critical issue for Moroccan cinema's aspiration to be a rooted cultural practice.

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Art is born and takes root where there is an eternal, unquenchable thirst for the spiritual, for the ideal.