We interviewed Mohamed El Aboudi on School of Hope (Hot Docs Winner), a beautiful and important documentary shot in the Moroccan desert, presented at the 2021 FIPADOC in Biarritz, France.
Initially scheduled on January 2021, the FIPADOC – Biarritz International Documentary Film Festival will eventually offer audiences the pleasure of discovering documentary gems in the French Pays Basque, from June 12th to June 17th, 2021. Among this year’s lineup is a documentary which has already proven successful on the film festival circuit, after winning the Special Jury Prize for an International Feature Documentary at Toronto-based Hot Docs back in May 2021. Previously, the film also played at the 2021 DOCPOINT Helsinki Documentary Film Festival, Finland’s Tampere Film Festival (where it was awarded a Special Prize) or Germany’s DOK.fest Munich to name but a few. We were lucky to discover Mohamed El Aboudi’s latest documentary, a co-production between Finland, France and Morocco, and warmly encourage FIPADOC’s audiences to discover School of Hope.
Climate change and overgrazing have brought poverty to the nomad tribes of the High Plateau of Atlas in Morocco. The Dehbi tribe is one of the oldest and last tribes left. Their ancestral way of life has been significantly tested by a decade-long drought and can no longer provide them with a living income. Now faced with the necessity to settle down, they feel more lost than when wandering with their cattle in the endless desert. Education becomes an essential struggle that also divides the community. To let a child go to school is to deprive oneself of a precious workforce. It might seem that there is not much hope for the children of the ‘School of Hope’, but the Dehbi are determined not to give up fighting.
We interviewed Director Mohamed El Aboudi about the process of making School of Hope, his intentions and the real-life experience he shared with the nomads.
Hi Mohamed! You were born in Morocco, you have studied in Australia and you now live in Finland. What kind of filmmaker are you?
Mohamed El Aboudi: I was born in Morocco where I graduated from the University of Fes in Theatre and Film. I then got a Master’s degree in Film and Television in Australia. And now, I live in Finland. When I came here, I started working on cultural programs at Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE. Now, I have been working as a freelance filmmaker for about 10 years with a strong focus on human rights, kid-related issues, climate change and justice. As a filmmaker, I know I cannot change everything, but I can definitely give a voice to the voiceless people.
With such diverse experiences around the world, you keep returning to Morocco to make films: Do you think that the way you look at your home country has evolved over time?
Mohamed El Aboudi: I think that when you are an artist, let’s say when you want to paint something, the best way to do it is to take a step back at some point, and have a look at your work from a distance. This way, you can see the whole harmony of the painting, figure out whether the colors fit together or not etc. This way, when you come back to it, you have a different perspective on the artwork you are creating. And, I think it is the same thing that happens when it comes to my relationship with Morocco. Being away from my home country for a while allowed me to create a new point of view, a new way of looking at Morocco. So, I am not anymore the same person I was when I grew up there. I can see things from different angles now, and this is perhaps what pushes me to create and look at Morocco in a certain way in my films.
“I thought it was a fantastic place. I loved it from the first second, and I thought it was the perfect location to make my film.”
Let’s talk about School of Hope, your latest documentary. Can you tell us how you found this surreal school, lost in the desert, gathering a dozen children from all ages who sometimes have to walk up to 10 or 12 kilometers to attend school? What kind of energy could you feel there?
Mohamed El Aboudi: It is very hard to describe that feeling. I think you have to be there to realize. I can remember very well the first time I visited that particular school, that we see in the film. After randomly running into an old school friend of mine, who used to live in the desert since he came from the same nomad tribes as the kids that we see in the film. I let him know about my film project about education in Moroccan remote areas, and he took me to the desert. It was during the summer, it was so hot, about 45 degrees Celsius. We were driving in the desert and at some point, he pointed to a small spot in the horizon with his finger and said “this is the school”! The school was about 3 kilometers away but you could still see it because everything was just flat, there was nothing around. So, that’s how I discovered this school, lost in the middle of nowhere. My first question to my friend was “But where do the kids come from? There’s nothing around!”. That’s when I realized that the kids had to walk about 10 kilometers everyday to get to the school. We kept driving and got closer to the school, where it was written in Arabic, above the door: “School of Hope”. But, it was partially gone due to the weather conditions, the sand, the cold etc. And so, I immediately saw the different ingredients that could make a film. My friend told me that usually, teachers were sent to teach in that school for a few months, but most of the time, they’d run away after just a few days! But, hopefully, the following year, a new teacher was to come and the kids were excited about it, because they are really happy to go to school. At first, I thought it would be difficult to make a movie there though, because the kids were spread out in the desert, living kilometers away from the school, and a teacher could come and leave at any time, after a few months or just a few days. So, I visited another school but, in the end, I came back to the first one and I decided that this was the spot! “I don’t care, this is the school I want to shoot at!” And I felt so good in this area. I could feel a strong connection between I and the surrounding environment, it felt so pure, nice and calm. You could see and hear so far away. I thought it was a fantastic place. I loved it from the first second, and I thought it was the perfect place to make my film.
“Tough lives, yet big hearts.”
The ingredients of the film are the school, the teacher, the kids, the desert, but also the kid’s families. You managed to capture the dilemma that those families are facing: should they send their children to school or should their children help them take care of the herds? On top of that, their living conditions are so harsh. They are suffering from the severe drought as a result of climate change. Did you expect their life to be that hard when you met them?
Mohamed El Aboudi: I didn’t know much about their life before meeting with them. I only knew that, as nomads, they would travel from the South to the North, looking for water and that they could stay a little bit on the same spot in spring, before coming back at the end of the summer. I remember my first encounter with the nomads very well. My friend who showed me the school, then took me to visit his cousin, who ended up in the film by the way. And he was really an amazing person with a very big heart. Tough life and big heart! And he had such an amazing sense of humor! These people are amazing, they are happy and they share with you everything they love. But, still, you realize they do not have water, they cannot drink proper water, they cannot get any fruits or vegetables. They do not have fridges because they do not have electricity. They do not have hospitals. My friend’s cousin told me that if his wife is to give birth, he only has a very old truck with no breaks to reach the closest hospital which is 200 kilometers away. They do not have the minimum amount of things you need to be human and to survive in the 21st century. They do not have anything, and yet, they are happy and they believe in the future! They firmly believe that one day things will work out, and the main source of hope that they have is their kids. They cannot move out of the desert without an education. They need their kids to be educated to be able to go to work in town. They do not have money, they only have herds. And their kids are their main hope. So, I was really amazed by how they manage to live and survive in such conditions. At first, I thought I could maybe live with them, in such a beautiful nature, but after a few days, you realize it is a very harsh life.
“What I wanted to show was the balance between the beauty and the harshness of nature.”
What is very powerful in the film is this contrast between the extreme difficulty of the nomads’ lives and the beauty of the nature they live in, which you film a lot during the golden hours. Do you think we can see there a metaphor for the sunset of a way of life?
Mohamed El Aboudi: This was not my primary intention. What I really wanted to do was to feature nature as a character of the film. I was so astonished by the beauty of the space that we filmed it in the morning, during the day, at night, in winter, in summer etc. What is more, my intention was to show how harsh nature is. Therefore, what I wanted to show is the balance between the beauty and harshness that nature offers. And the nomads find themselves in the middle of this balance, between the beauty and the harshness of nature. Moreover, let’s not forget the government, which is the major absentee of the film. The government does not do anything for those people. They do not want to build proper schools or roads. No one cares. Those people are left alone, which does not mean they are just waiting for God to help them though. They build schools by themselves, they try to find water etc. So, in the end, my purpose was to show this balance between the beauty and harshness of nature, in which brave people are living, without complaining.
There is one scene in the film that, for us, was probably our favourite moment. It was both magical and touching: a kid is practicing his writing, in his family’s tent. Sitting next to him is his father who has never been to school. And his son ends up taking his father’s hand, teaching him how to write his name. Can you tell us how this situation unfolded in front of the camera?
Mohamed El Aboudi: Actually, I did not plan to have that scene. I wanted to follow the teacher, who has no place to stay in the desert, but who is alternately hosted by the nomad families. So that night, we followed him as he was hosted by a family whose kids attend school. Since the parents are illiterate, the teacher was helping the kids do their homework, while the parents were preparing the dinner. And I love this shot where we can see the teacher, the kids in the foreground, and their father cooking, in the back, and looking at them. Suddenly, I asked the father if he had ever been to school. And he replied to me “Of course, not!”. I asked him if he could at least write his name but he said “no”. And spontaneously, his son asked him if he could teach him to write his name. The kid felt so proud, and it was fantastic to witness. The kid grabbed his father’s hand to teach him and his sister was laughing. Unusually, the kids were teaching something to their father! It was truly a magical moment.
“They ended up like a family to me. The worst part was when the shooting was over and we had to leave for good.”
Will the film be released in Morocco? And what do you expect Moroccan audiences to take away from it, since a lot of people have no idea about how nomads live in the Moroccan desert?
Mohamed El Aboudi: The film was supported by the Centre cinématographique marocain (Morocco’s national film board) and we have a co-producer in Morocco, so the film will be shown there. We are also planning with the French co-producer to go and show the film to the nomads, which would be great! Regarding how Moroccans will react to the film, I think some of them will be surprised to find out about the nomads’ lifestyle and the type of education that is presented in the film. Obviously, people from cities like Rabat or Casablanca can go to normal schools, even if the Moroccan education system suffers a lot of issues. But it’s nothing like having to walk 12 kilometers to go to a school where the teacher is not even trained. There are even places in the desert where you can walk 50 or 200 kilometers, and you won’t find any school. As a result, I think that audiences from bigger cities will be surprised. Some people may even ask why I did this film, why I am showing them this reality. I am very curious to see how people will react. But, I am sure that some of them will be shocked to realize that although we are in the 21st century, we still have this type of education in the country.
What aspect of documentary filmmaking do you enjoy the most?
Mohamed El Aboudi: To me, the best part is when you are making research, because you get to travel the world, and to many regions in Morocco in this case, you meet with a lot of people that may not end up in the film, but still, you spend time with them, you talk with them, you film them. They share with you their lives, you live with them for a while. They share their hope, their pain, what touches them, to the point that you become part of their lives in some ways. When shooting School of Hope, each time we came to film, we would leave and they would be sad and they would cry. It was really tough for me, because you feel like you belong to those people. I was also very involved in the community. My father being a teacher himself, I know how to handle kids and I would even suggest the school teacher – who had never been a teacher before – things to do with the children. This way, I got involved, we spent time playing football together, we played outside, looking for snakes etc. They ended up like a family to me. And the worst part came when the shooting was over and we had to leave for good. You know you are not going to see them again, but they keep in touch with you, they write to you, they call you, they ask about you. So, this was a wonderful real-life experience! It is very different from directing a fiction film, bringing your cast and crew, and being isolated from the people who live there. So, I think I am lucky to be a documentary filmmaker. I get to share real moments of life with people. I stay with them, sleep with them, drink with them etc. I just love it!
We want to thank Emilia Kiuru (Tampere Film Festival) and Mohamed El Aboudi for their kindness and time.
