Before the Dying of the Light (2019) Ali Essafi

A subjective collection of archives, photos and personal stories. A poignant tribute to the artistic scene of 1970s Morocco, swept away by the dictatorship of Hassan II. The seventies were the last Moroccan period in which struggles and dreams for change were a reality. Also known as “Years of Lead” due to the violent repression that came along, this was the most important artistic and cultural period which shaped the first generation of Moroccan post-colonial artists. Through a socio-political approach “Before the Dying of the Light” exhumes archives of great creativity, this atmosphere of revolt had succeeded in setting free and which had long been censored or marginalized.