Projecting Jewishness in Moroccan contemporary cinema: Fin Mashi Ya Moshé? and Aida as case studies

Moroccan Jews have always presented a thorny topic; an intricate and a controversial issue that has constantly been accompanied by a group of discussions and a set of interrogations in various fields. In postcolonial Morocco, they were portrayed as exiled diasporic figures whose history and memory were monopolized or confiscated by the two main narratives of both Zionism and Arab nationalism. After decades of voluntary oblivion towards Morocco’s Jewish past, the term ‘Moroccan Jews’ is being reformulated in several histories and in various literary and artistic ‘outlets’. It seems a difficult challenge in the face of the ancient pages of the past and the cracks of memory; however, with the emergence of a new history about exile and diaspora, new perceptions and implications have been given, challenging the two prevailing national narratives formulated in literature and cinema. ‘Fin Mashi Ya Moshé?’ (2007) (Where Are You Going, Moshé?) by Hassan Benjelloun and ‘Aida’ (2015) by Driss Mrini; two feature films explore an essential part of Morocco's past, and paint two different but complementary pictures of Moroccan Jews as they reflect the circumstances of their mass exodus and the attempts of return. The two directors seek to approach the memory of Moroccan Jews in the Diaspora through peculiar plots knitted in a dramatically cinematic template, in an attempt to comprehend an almost bygone memory and transmit it to new generations through cinema as a collection of memory archives and a set of subjective representations of the past.