Since 2008, the Association of Culture and Education through Audiovisual Media, of which you are the President, has been organizing the International Documentary Film Festival in Agadir (FIDADOC). Could you introduce this cultural event to us? 

The festival was born from the idea of a Franco-Moroccan producer, Nouzha Drissi, who had left Morocco to pursue her studies in France. She discovered documentary cinema while working in production companies before starting her own and leading a successful career. We met in 2007 when she returned to Morocco with the desire to produce documentary films in the country. She then realized that this tradition had disappeared and that Morocco no longer had any reference in the field of creative documentary. 

So, we imagined a festival to show that it isn’t just a pedagogical tool, but that documentary films are “real cinema” that tell stories through characters. During the first two editions, we set up introductory workshops for young people from the city or cinema enthusiasts, organized in the premises of the French Institute of Morocco. In 2010, Nouzha Drissi invited representatives from France Télévisions and Arte to meet project holders from Moroccan film schools. Our goal was to expose these aspiring Moroccan filmmakers to established international professionals. On this occasion, we were able to gauge the significant gap between the level of their projects and the expectations of foreign producers or broadcasters. We then joined the AFRICADOC network and created our own writing residency, open to our Maghreb and Sub-Saharan neighbors. 

As part of FIDADOC, you have been organizing a "Documentary Hive" since 2012. What is this project about? 

In 2011, financial problems emerged, forcing us to postpone the fourth edition of the Festival, which was supposed to include this new component, to 2012. Our founder passed away in December 2011 in a car accident. That’s when I took over the direction of the festival, coming from a technical background as a director of photography with experience in both fiction and documentary filmmaking. The period between 2011 and 2013 was a pivotal moment, where the revolts occurring in Tunisia, Egypt, and Syria played an important role in the development of documentary filmmaking in our region. 

While preparing the first edition of our training and artistic support program, the metaphor of the "Documentary Hive" came to me, with Nouzha as its queen. A hive where the honey would be a new generation of filmmakers and their films. This term immediately resonated, and since then, all the educational and professional activities of FIDADOC have been grouped under this Documentary Hive, which is structured around two main components. 

On one hand, there is a "Popular Documentary University," open to aspiring filmmakers and all enthusiasts of the genre, aimed at showcasing the richness and diversity of documentary filmmaking. On the other hand, there is a Pan-African writing residency that welcomes young authors with a first film project, with the ambition to encourage them to take action and connect them with the professional world. 

The Documentary Hive is a laureate project of the Accès Culture program, which aims to foster social connections and strengthen collaborations between African and French cultural actors. Could you tell us about this support and its impact? 

Through a three-year partnership, from 2023 to 2026, Accès Culture allows us to consolidate and enhance existing initiatives, with a constant focus on offering our beneficiaries a coherent professionalization pathway and accelerating the realization of their films by providing them with the maximum opportunities and visibility. 

Between 2012 and 2015, we worked within the framework of AFRICADOC, gradually expanding and diversifying our network to include other African and European partners. 

The French Institute has been a valuable supporter, starting with the one in Agadir, where we organized the first editions of the Documentary Hive. Then, the French Institutes in Morocco and Paris provided us with financial support and facilitated the mobility of our beneficiaries and contributors. 

More broadly, we can count on the solidarity of the entire French documentary ecosystem, including festivals (Lussas, FID Marseille, Cinéma du réel, FIPADOC, Sunny Side of the Docs) and key players such as SCAM and CNC. We also leveraged decentralized cooperation, such as the twinning between the cities of Agadir and Nantes to co-organize a Produire au Sud workshop with the Festival des 3 Continents for five years, and the cooperation agreement between the Souss-Massa region and Nouvelle Aquitaine. 

You are also supported by the Cinema Creation Pathway, established by the French Institute as part of the Création Africa program. This support focuses on the Popular Documentary University. What goal do you wish to achieve? 

Fifteen years ago, there was no documentary training in Morocco. It became evident to us that we needed to create a space that would bring together students and enthusiasts, allowing them to watch films and meet industry professionals. We prioritized exchanges with young directors from countries culturally and economically close to ours so that young Moroccans could realize that their peers from other African and/or Arab countries, facing similar obstacles, had found ways to realize their dreams. After 12 editions, we are proud that about forty of our beneficiaries have made their first film, some have started their own companies, and they now return here to identify and select projects from the Documentary Hive. 

We are also proud to welcome prominent figures like Nicolas Philibert, who in 2014 was one of the first to accept our invitation to sponsor the Documentary Hive. 

With the support of partners and initiatives like the Cinema Creation Pathway, we are helping to build a community of young documentary film lovers, who we hope will become the filmmakers of tomorrow. 

Since 2012, you have been directing the International Documentary Film Festival of Agadir, but you have also been in charge of the artistic direction of the International Women's Film Festival of Salé since 2008. Over the past fifteen years, what changes have you observed in the development of documentary cinema, as well as in the role of women within the seventh art? 

Looking back over the past fifteen years, I can say that we’ve come a long way. I met Nouzha Drissi when she was a jury member at the International Women's Film Festival of Salé, which was created in 2003 and for which I have been handling programming since 2006.

At that time, very few people knew what the term "creative documentary" encompassed. Today, we’ve almost reached the opposite situation, where everyone wants to make documentaries or claims to be making them. The genre has become trendy, a phenomenon further reinforced by the success of recent films like The Mother of All Lies by Asmae El Moudir, for which we supported the initial writing phase during the second edition of our residency in 2013. The success of Asmae and many other "Hive members" like Ousmane Samassekou, Aicha Macky, Hind Bensari, and Adnane Baraka contributes to giving the genre a noble and rewarding image. However, it is crucial to remind aspiring filmmakers that making a documentary requires prior learning, involves a specific approach, and reflects a particular worldview. We must continue to fight to ensure that the term "documentary" is not diluted or misused.

Globally, the documentary sector has a much higher representation of women compared to fiction. Consequently, African and Arab countries still have relatively few female fiction directors. The women filmmakers who manage to produce multiple feature films are all strong personalities and remain exceptions.