Qirat

Qirat is a film loosely based around the reconstruction of an oral family story surrounding a robbery that took place in the lush green valley of Fez, located in northern Morocco during the 1980s.

In the film, the events have been relocated to Ouarzazate, located on the border of the Sahara desert in central-southern Morocco with the reconstruction taking place over a single Friday, exclusively during dawn, dusk, and finally night.

As the events of the oral story slowly unfolds from the Atlas Mountains into the city centre, the story serves as a compass leading through various locations in Ouarzazate, where the place's life, it’s history as a Hollywood shooting location and one of the world's largest solar energy fields are interwoven into each other.

  • Amin Zouiten
    Director
    Nadir
  • Amin Zouiten
    Writer
  • Aron Skoog
    Writer
    Ridge (Actor)
  • Claes Hedlund
    Producer
  • Erik Hemmendorff
    Producer
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Runtime:
    13 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    January 31, 2024
  • Country of Origin:
    Sweden
  • Country of Filming:
    Morocco
  • Language:
    Arabic
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    2.35:1
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Gothenburg Filmfestival (Startsladden)
    Gothenburg
    Sweden
    January 31, 2024
    World Premiere
    Startsladden (Swedish Short)
Distribution Information
  • Plattform Produktion
    Distributor
    Country: Sweden
    Rights: All Rights
Director Biography - Amin Zouiten

Amin Zouiten (b.1994) is a Swedish-Moroccan filmmaker and artist educated at Malmö Art Academy and Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. His works and films have been exhibited at Malmö Konsthall, International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Kunsthalle Charlottenborg, CPH:DOX, Tempo Documentary Festival.

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Director Statement

Qirat is a film inspired by the now nearly extinct oral Moroccan storytelling tradition of the “Al-Halqa”. It uses the metaphor of gold to represent Ouarzazate’s constant economic opportunism and is structured in two parts, focusing on the story of gold and the location of Ouarzazate and its surroundings. The events in the film are loosely based on a reconstruction of a robbery that took place in the green valley of Fez in the 1980s, which are now transposed to the barren desert landscape of Ouarzazate, a popular filming location and site of one of the world’s largest solar power plants. The film aims to tell the story of changing conditions in a city that has historically attracted opportunism and fortune-seekers. I was told about the oral narrative by my father when I was growing up, as we often re-watched pirated DVDs of a film shot in Ouarzazate, which sparked the initial interest and eventually led to the making of this film. Through Qirat, I want to build on my roots in documentary film and visual arts and forge my first steps into the world of fiction film by creating a story that develops narrative dots between Morocco and Sweden, North Africa and Europe.