Young cinema or cinema of the youth

Written by Allal El Alaoui

            It is indeed a complex question whether there is a cinema of the youth or young cinema, but obviously there is young cinema or simply young people who have been successful to make beautiful movies such as OrsonWelles, Sam Peckinpah and Truffaut not forgetting some Arab film makers who have been good to produce handsome movies when they were in the early age naming for example Shadi Abdel Salam, Youssef Chahineand Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina

            There is a French proverb that says "If only young people know and if only old people can". It is true that young people are asked to dare in order to write and realize their own vision in movies. However, how can youth create knowing that their minds are old? It is a sort of phobia that young people of Morocco are suffering from today especially this question is remarked by too many university professors either in Marrakech; Rabat, Casablanca, or even Fez.

            Young people are confronted with two main elements that influence them in making their careers. First is money I mean to say Box office .I know a young film maker living in Salé who is  continuously cursing system by scorning official head masters of media .However, his rage is not translated in cinema. He is trapped into box offices headaches and of course the size of money that he can make out of it. Unless for example an Indian film maker , Yash Shopra,recently died  who works silently but makes controversial movies already marked in history of cinema of entertainmentnaming for example his beautiful film called  Veer-Zaarathat was successful to  unite two  struggling countries Pakistan and India. Because of this strong message of this film, frontiers between these two countries are open. From this context, I want our young people to use their rage in making cinema like the one of Shopra.

           The second thing that faces young people is creation or art. Art films are not easily made. But, creation can be fruitful if they work on it by hard work like reading international and national books, watching all kind of movies and discuss them with lucid and intelligent minds. Participating in film festivals can help to create criteria mind either in amateur film festival or professional one. Amateur film festival sometimes surprises us with introducing beautiful films. But if an amateur film festival intends only to make controversy or money then things become difficult. This happens Kalaat Des Sraghna Short Film Festival  with Mustapha Chaabi's short film called "Al Qods Abnadem" and my short film called" The will" that were selected in competition .At the end, when the jury presents awards, its head master Mohamed chwika states that our films named above can not be awarded because they are too professionals. Why do film festival director call professionals film makers then? What is the game? I can not get it.

I call all young people to work hard and start make movies using all sort of simple media tools that exist now in the market like I phone  cameras, simple editing sofwares, Cameras with SD or HD cards , using studio or artificial lightings if it is possible  especially write movies with the help professional actors and actresses and of course with film makers too. Insist to work and produce beautiful films especially filming our vision our dreams that still invade us whenever we are .This love of cinema and this rage in us will help us to refuse to be unproductive i mean to say to be old.