Adrian Schindler film, 30 min, 2023.

In collaboration with Fátima Bourhim Mesaoudi, Ikram Essaghir, Ibrahim Ibnou Goush, Huda Laamarti, La Guardia Mora and Sono Mayrit b2b Disco Atlas.

The film trilogy “Tetuan, Tetuán, Titwan” deals with Spain’s colonial past in Morocco and the traces it has left in Spanish society through an experimental collaborative methodology, examining both cultural production and public space as well as the collective imaginary. Developed in three cities in dialogue with Moroccan and Spanish cultural agents, each of the three chapters explores narrative strategies to resignify places such as the Plaça Tetuan in Barcelona, the neighborhood of Tetuán de las Victorias in Madrid or the Teatro Cine “Español” in the city of Tétouan, Morocco. Punctuated by readings, songs, informal conversations and fictional scenes at the foot of monuments, in cafés, streets and museums, it upholds the idea that orality can offer resistance to hegemonic discourses and favors the emergence of other imaginaries.

On the last night of filming of the second chapter, a group of singers, DJs and podcasters meets in the Mozarab Tavern in Madrid. While Sono Mayrit and Disco Atlas play old records and tapes from the Rif region, the protagonists exchange about their Moroccan and Amazigh heritage, the role music has played in liberation movements and their experience during the previous days of shooting. As the film conveys the memory of historical events in northern Morocco to the present day in the Spanish capital, we follow Fátima, Huda, Ikram and Ibrahim performing on the streets of the Tetuán neighborhood, in front of a monument or in an underground parking lot. Acompanied by the latest radio show of the Moorish Guard and moments of laughter and dance in the tavern, their songs, poems and spoken words highlight the city’s untold colonial legacy and ultimately celebrate that the time has come for their generation to shape new narratives.

Text and photos courtesy of Adrian Schindler