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Casa Negra: The Real Casablanca

4 Extra Debut. Andrew Hussey investigates the cultural renaissance affecting the largest city in Morocco - Casablanca. From 2014.

The years since the Millennium have been a tumultuous time for Morocco.

With the arrival of a new, more progressive king and reaction against terrorist bombings in 2003 helping to galvanise a burgeoning arts community - and nowhere has this been more the case than in the country's largest city of Casablanca.

Film-makers and musicians there have been at the vanguard of those questioning repressive political and social structures, in part because it is the city where earlier experiments with a more capitalistic economic model have led to a particularly apparent division between rich and poor.

Professor Andrew Hussey, who's been visiting the city for many years, hears from many of the key players in what's been labelled the Nayda movement - including the director of the ground breaking movie 'Casa Negra' and the rapper whose recent imprisonment for criticising the police suggests that the movement still has some distance to go before Moroccan artists can fully exploit the freedoms enjoyed by those in Europe and the USA who have offered them such inspiration.

Producer: Geoff Bird

First broadcast on 成人快手 Radio 4 in September 2014.

Available now

30 minutes

Last on

Thu 19 Aug 2021 02:30

Piers Plowright's Pick

Piers Plowright's Pick

Legendary radio maker Piers Plowright recommends Casa Negra: The Real Casablanca:

"Professor Andrew Hussey explores modern Casablanca, setting it in the energy and precariousness of Moroccan culture, its narrowly maintained freedoms, and the vitality of its arts scene 鈥 particularly as seen in a ground-breaking film.

"This is a documentary you can taste and feel. Casablanca, its streets, caf茅s, underground scene, music, voices really come alive. And Professor Hussey is the least professorial presenter I鈥檝e ever heard. He involves us in the sounds, smells, and talk with a gusto that鈥檚 completely infectious. You feel in real time as he navigates the back streets, makes phone calls, meets some of the brave people who 鈥 even a comparatively moderate Arab state 鈥 run risks in talking, filming, and music making. In particular the director of the 2008 film, Casanegra, who has crossed 鈥榯he red line鈥 as far as what is usually acceptable to Moroccan society goes. As he expresses it: 鈥淢orocco is hard, dark, violent, but at the same time, generous.鈥 And this programme catches the generosity."


Broadcasts

  • Mon 8 Sep 2014 16:00
  • Wed 18 Aug 2021 14:30
  • Thu 19 Aug 2021 02:30

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