{"id":1042603,"date":"2025-12-11T14:51:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T11:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1042603"},"modified":"2025-12-11T14:51:00","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T11:51:00","slug":"animalia-an-eerie-feminist-sci-fi-about-aliens-invading-morocco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1042603","title":{"rendered":"Animalia: An eerie feminist sci-fi about aliens invading Morocco"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"article-body wrapper\">\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p>In<span>\u00a0<\/span><em><span>Animalia<\/span><\/em>, a pregnant woman, Itto (Ouma\u00efma Barid), is fleeing what appears to be an alien invasion. There aren\u2019t any green Martians or flying spaceships. Instead, a cluster of thunderstorm clouds forms ominous, green-tinged shapes that encroach on a rocky road in rural Morocco. Staring at the environmental phenomenon, Imma briefly enters a parallel dimension that\u2019s like if Terrence Malick directed<span>\u00a0<\/span><em>The Matrix<\/em>: Itto\u2019s spirit separates from her body amidst discordant orchestral wailing; teardrops multiply into floating, human-shaped blobs that form a constellation.<\/p>\n<p>Returning to Earth \u2013 or perhaps just waking up from a panic attack \u2013 Itto asks a young man if he witnessed the same shapes in the sky. He explains, \u201cLike fish who don\u2019t see the water they\u2019re in, we\u2019re immersed in something we don\u2019t see either.\u201d Within the narrative, neither religion nor technology can explain whether extraterrestrials visited the planet, or if the weather just happened to be rather extreme that day.<span>\u00a0<\/span><em><span>Animalia<\/span><\/em>, an arthouse sci-fi, doesn\u2019t want to offer an explanation \u2013 in fact, it does the opposite.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re facing a challenging period,\u201d says Sofia Alaoui, the writer and director of<span>\u00a0<\/span><em><span>Animalia<\/span><\/em>, on a Zoom call from Rabat. \u201cWith AI, technology, and our disconnection from nature, we have to question how we\u2019re living in this world.\u201d We\u2019re also fish who don\u2019t recognise that we\u2019re swimming in water? \u201cYes, the film challenges our vision of life. Because we\u2019re arrogant, we think we know how life works. I want to challenge that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"src-youtube video-container embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"media-youtube\" data-id=\"CsD4mKc3Vno\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allowfullscreen frameborder height=\"422\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/CsD4mKc3Vno\" webkitallowfullscreen width=\"750\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p>Alaoui, a 35-year-old Moroccan filmmaker, made her industry breakthrough in 2020 with a C\u00e9sar Award-winning short,<span>\u00a0<\/span><em>So What If the Goats Die<\/em>, which she expanded into<span>\u00a0<\/span><em><span>Animalia<\/span><\/em>. (Her intended English-language title,<span>\u00a0<\/span><em>Among Us<\/em>, was blocked by the video game of the same name.) Before any sci-fi shenanigans unfold, Itto already has her own covert operation: she\u2019s living in a mansion with her affluent husband, Amine (Mehdi Dehbi), whose judgmental family despise the fact that he married someone from a Berber background.<\/p>\n<p>Switching between French, Arabic, and Berber, Itto is a code-switching chameleon who discovers an alien invasion is an excuse to restart her life. She hitchhikes with a Berber stranger, Fouad (Fouad Oughaou), and tries to reckon with the misogyny and classism she\u2019s received all her life. It starts with speaking her favoured language, Berber.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBerbers were in Morocco before Muslims,\u201d Alaoui explains. \u201cBerbers have their own mythology, their own language. For a very long time, even in Morocco, the Berber language was forbidden, because they had to speak Arabic. Sometimes I don\u2019t want to use the word \u2018Berber\u2019, because the real name is \u2018Amazigh\u2019, which means \u2018free people\u2019. My origins are Amazigh. People from the mountains are usually Amazigh. When I grew up, there was [prejudice towards] Amazigh people. The social clash was really strong. There\u2019s still a thing where it\u2019s like, \u2018You\u2019re from the mountains. You\u2019re poor. We can\u2019t talk to you.\u2019 In this movie, I wanted to recreate the reality of how society works between classes.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>Can you really be religious if you\u2019re a misogynist and arrogant about your social class? Nowadays, in Morocco, there\u2019s a lot of demonstrating what it is to be Muslim, but I\u2019m not sure at the heart there\u2019s that consciousness and spirituality<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p>Outside of the leads, the cast comprises non-professional actors who ground the sci-fi and add a quasi-documentary aesthetic. Alaoui didn\u2019t arrange rehearsals; they didn\u2019t even see the script in advance. \u201cIt was much more coming to set, and discovering what you\u2019re going to do.\u201d For the crew, the director asked them to watch films like<span>\u00a0<\/span><em>Arrival<\/em>,<span>\u00a0<\/span><em>Under the Skin<\/em>, and<span>\u00a0<\/span><em>The Killing of a Sacred Deer<\/em>. \u201c<em>Sacred Deer<\/em><span>\u00a0<\/span>is about a weirdness you cannot understand, but you accept it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In<span>\u00a0<\/span><em><span>Animalia<\/span><\/em>, the equivalent weirdness starts with creatures \u2013 primarily dogs, birds, and sheep \u2013 behaving out of step, often lining up to stare at Itto like they\u2019re possessed. In a way, humans and their animal counterparts are bonded in the face of an inexplicable sci-fi incident. Two-thirds into the film, the kinship enters new territory. \u201cWhen I thought about Ito hugging the sheep, I was really excited,\u201d says Alaoui. \u201cIt\u2019s not just a sheep \u2013 it\u2019s her mother. It\u2019s recreating something so emotionally strong that we feel as if she\u2019s travelling to another dimension, where her mother is now a sheep.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the third act, after Alaoui\u2019s transcendent visions, society tries to return to normal. At a mosque, Muslim prayers are interrupted by unusual behaviour by birds and ants. \u201cIt\u2019s not a film against religion,\u201d Alaoui says. \u201cIt\u2019s a film that questions what it means to be spiritual.\u201d In terms of the film tackling sexism, faith and classicism, the director explains, \u201cIt\u2019s the reality of being a woman in Morocco. It\u2019s the environment. At the beginning, the family is really religious. But can you really be religious if you\u2019re a misogynist and arrogant about your social class? Nowadays, in Morocco, there\u2019s a lot of demonstrating what it is to be Muslim, but I\u2019m not sure at the heart there\u2019s that consciousness and spirituality.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<figure class=\"inline-img expandable dev-view-hide\" data-img=\"25c978f6-0295-45d5-9576-b3b000eea2d1\" data-src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1280\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/3\/1433027.jpeg\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"2.39\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Animalia\" class=\"img\" height=\"536\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/786\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/3\/1433027.jpeg\" width=\"1280\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"caption\">Animalia (Film Still)<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Wrong films<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p>At Sundance,<span>\u00a0<\/span><em><span>Animalia<\/span><\/em><span>\u00a0<\/span>won a jury award for \u201cCreative Vision\u201d, and Alaoui is now juggling multiple projects: one is<span>\u00a0<\/span><em>Tarfaya<\/em>, a Moroccan mystery movie about a sleeping sickness, while she\u2019s also busy on an English-language sci-fi. The latter is because, she explains, genre cinema is tricky to finance in Morocco. \u201cWe\u2019re still stuck in the Western way of seeing Arab stories. Sometimes French institutions will finance an Arab movie, and they want it to deal with a woman being harassed, or an emancipation story where the woman says \u2018fuck\u2019 to her Muslim society. I\u2019m really not happy with that. I\u2019m resisting doing the same stories.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So<span>\u00a0<\/span><em><span>Animalia<\/span><\/em><span>\u00a0<\/span>is leading the way for more Arab sci-fi movies? \u201cIt\u2019s complicated. Maybe in a few years it\u2019ll change. My generation is pushing the limits so that we can have the space to create our own stories. But it\u2019s hard.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Animalia<em> is out in UK cinemas on December 12<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p> Source URL: https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/film-tv\/article\/69271\/1\/animalia-an-eerie-feminist-sci-fi-about-aliens-invading-morocco-sofia-alaoui<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In\u00a0Animalia, a pregnant woman, Itto (Ouma\u00efma Barid), is fleeing what appears to be an alien invasion. There aren\u2019t any green Martians or flying spaceships. Instead, a cluster of thunderstorm clouds forms ominous, green-tinged shapes that encroach on a rocky road in rural Morocco. Staring at the environmental phenomenon, Imma briefly enters a parallel dimension that\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[76],"class_list":["post-1042603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-dazeddigital-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1042603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1042603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1042603\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1042603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1042603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1042603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}