Cinecittà Personaggi

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6/7/2004

RASHID BENHADJ

"For Bread Alone": Choukri against extremism

[by Miriam Tola]

In the 1960s Tangiers was a crossroads of illegal commerce and forbidden pleasures, filled with artist, smugglers, spies, charlatans and vagrants.

This is the setting where Mohamed Choukri, who couldn't read or write until he was 20, wrote the book For Bread Alone. It is the autobiographical story of an extreme childhood, marked by a violent father, hunger and prostitution. The book was released in English in 1973, translated by Paul Bowles. It immediately caused a scandal: Morocco banned it, but the government couldn't stop the book from becoming a cult.

Choukri died in November 2003 , but his art/life lives on in the film For Bread Alone by Rashid Benhadj, the 50-year-old Algerian director.

The film is produced by Roberto De Laurentiis for Progetto Visivo, Essa&Bi, and AE Media Corporation , with contribution from the state. It stars Saïd Taghmaoui

UNESCO has awarded Benhadj a medal for Mirka, and the body organised a premiere in Paris on the occasion of the year of alphabetisation. For Bread Alone is currently in post-production at Cinecittà , and it will be distributed by Esse&Bi.

When did you discover "For Bread Alone"?
I was about 16 or 18. The book had been banned in Arab countries, because, for the first time, it lifted the veil on Arab society. But, it was illegally circulated, and it became the manifesto of a generation. The ban in Morocco was only lifted in 2000, and it still can't be sold in Egypt. Choukri is like: a cursed author, who lived a life without compromise, so whole and so intense that his books seem as though they're written with blood.

How long have you been working on the film?
3 years ago, I discovered that the rights to the book were available and I option to them. I contacted Choukri to discuss the screenplay. This had a strong impact. There will also conflicts because he was afraid of interference. Then, before he died, and a week before we were due to start filming, he thanked me.

 Where was the filming done?
We filmed for a seven-week period, between November and December. I gave up the idea of filming in Tangiers because the city has changed too much. I chose Rabat, which is closer to the oriental style of that era. Some of the internal scenes were filmed at Morlupo, in a monastery.

 

Is there much anticipation for the film in Morocco?
Yes. But I didn't do any interviews during the filming. I didn't want to attract attention to a works that is still taboo. There was really tight security on set. We were attacked while we were filming in the cemetery: someone couldn't stand the presence of an Italian film crew in a sacred Muslim. It was only at the end that I met some journalists from a local TV station.

Has Morocco supported the production?
We were offered tremendous logistical help thanks toBen Barka, one of Pasolini's collaborators and a former director of the Moroccan film Centre.

What do you think of Italian cinema?
In Italy there's a great fear of the other. This narrow mindedness is also reflected in a cinema that is too umbilical.

(The photographs are by Claudio Martinez)

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