Gnaoua Encounter

The belief that giving people(including myself) the chance to encounter any type of salvation through a film is the mission for filmmakers has been my motivation to desperately keep trying to make films. Thus seeking the Buddhist way of salvation from pain and suffering through acceptance and non-attachment had been the core theme in my filmmaking for my previous two narrative feature films. And after pursuing another encounter to the different approach for salvation I had an opportunity to meet the people in Moroccan Gnaoua(or Gnawa) culture through my friend producer.

Gnaoua, with its root in Islamic and African culture, is a combination of music performance, dance, and spiritual rituals including the sacrifice of animals. It was developed among the slaves without freedom for their own body but sought freedom in inner-self by attaining the state of trance. I found it quite similar to the Buddhist approach, especially the meditation practices like Zen, except that Gnaoua seeks transcendence through those music, dance and rituals. The tradition of Gnaoua is based on the submission, which is the recognition, awareness, or belief in the existence of superior being beyond your cognition, with such submission they purify their stress, frustration, depression, anger and desperation, sublimed into energy to live their lives in goodness.

Through this short documentary you would become aware how the set of music, dance, and religious practices are sophisticatedly designed to induce a “transcendent” state in your mind. On the acoustic side, the music played for the ritual is a repetition of short phrases marked by heavy bass rhythmic melodies from GIMBRI, a three-stringed lute made of wood and camel skin, in combination with high-pitched sound from QUARQABA, a set of large metal castanet, along with call-and-response singing and hand-clapping. On the visual side, performers all put themselves in wardrobes with vivid colors, dance in circular motion, often with lit candles. The main part of the ceremony is structured by performances of 7 songs, with a particular color assigned to each song, red, green, blue, yellow, purple, white, and black, where the main dancer wears the cloth in each color. The ceremony continues for 8 to 10 hours with a supper break in the middle, where the meat from the sacrifice is served and shared.

This documentary, filmed with angles to optimize these induction, audio-mixed to enhance it, will provide audience the sensation of hypnotic trance invoked by the Gnaoua ceremony in even more effective manner than the experience of actually being there.

My wish is for the audience of this film to enjoy the extraordinary night of the transcendent ritual in its best form, along with the rare interview footages on prestigious Gnaoua masters guiding you through the ceremony, and find the moment they feel freedom deep inside of themselves, stepping out of intellectual deliberation or rational reasoning, and to feel being given the inspiration to have intention to seek further salvation and joy of life, as it has been what I have been through my encounter with Gnaoua.