En quête de la septième porte

La Septième Porte (The Seventh Gate) is the title of a 300-page research into film history dedicated to Moroccan cinema between 1907 and 1986. Hand- written by Ahmed Bouanani (1938–2011) over many years, it was never published. Neither his contribution to film history, nor the five films (four of which are shorts) he directed between 1966 and 1980, that also deal with the question of the ‘politics of memory’ found support in post-colonial Morocco. Ali Essafi’s portrait film, Crossing the Seventh Gate, takes a similiar stand against the state-led policy of inhibiting the transmission of memory. He visited Bouanani three years before his death. At that time, Bouanani had become a recluse, living in a remote village with his wife, Naïma, and several cats, amidst of piles of books and manuscripts, those that had been spared from a devastating fire, years earlier. He was physically frail, but his spirit was unbroken. Ali Essafi filmed their conversations over several long visits. They talked about his perception of the role of cinema in contemporary Morocco, censorship, the ban hon filmmaking that he endured, and his work as a film editor. The Seventh Gate weaves excerpts from these interviews with excerpts fom Bouanani’s films, and other documents to map out the poetic universe of a fiercely independent artist, whose integrity and will remained untainted.