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A Thousand Months (2003)Director: Faouzi Bensaidi

AS/A2 Study Guide written by Muntasir Al-Hamad and Mohamad AlJarrah

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INTRODUCTION / This study guide is relevant to AS/A2 and equivalent level Arabic.

AS/A2 TOPICS include: Village life, family relationships, school life, religion; Ramadan, prayers, social issues, special occasions, isolation, poverty, authority and fear.

Themes include: Respect, work, education, relationship, hope, belief and responsibility.

Director:

Writers:

Cast:

Cinematography:

Edited by:

Production Company:

Country:

Release Date:

Language:

Running time:

Faouzi BensaidiFaouzi Bensaidi

Emmanuelle SardouFouad Labied (Mehdi)

Nezha Rahile (Amina)Mohamed Majd (Grandfather)Mohammed Afi fi (Houcine)Abdelati Lambarki (Caid)Mohamed Bastaoui (Caid’s Brother) and others

Antoine Héberlé

Sandrine Deegen

Laurant Lavolé and Isabelle Pragier

France, Morocco

16 May 2003

Arabic (Moroccan Dialect)

119 minutes approx

CREDITS /

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SYNOPSIS /

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BEFORE THE FILM /

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Pre-viewing activities

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2b

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DURING THE FILM /While-watching activities

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AFTER THE FILM /Post-viewing activities

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(a) A Thousand Months is a stark but lovely evocation of the many melodramas that simultaneously haunt and enliven a Moroccan village in the Atlas Mountains during the month of Ramadan in 1981. The story’s intertwining, fl eeting threads recall Altman’s Short Cuts, but the sly playfulness of the fi lm’s tone more accurately refl ects Elia Suleiman’s more overtly political Divine Intervention and Otar Iosseliani’s Tati homage Monday Morning. The fi lm ostensibly concerns the coming of age of young Mehdi (Fouad Labied), who carries around the chair his love-struck professor sits on during class. But the narrative soon opens up, cataloging the various deceptions and romantic entanglements of other characters: a local television programmer who plays God by cutting off the town’s entertainment for the girl who goes on to marry the town’s lascivious “kaid”; Mehdi’s mother, Amina (Nezha Rahil), who keeps her activist husband’s imprisonment a secret from her son and attempts to move on with a new man; and the boy’s grandfather, the practical Ahmed (Mohammed Majd), who struggles to keep everyone’s faith despite the family’s blistering poverty.

Director Faouzi Bensaidi’s incredible use of widescreen is rigorous but never suffocating. Because there’s only a handful of close-ups in the entire fi lm (a zoom into the static of a television program and a shot of Amina’s face as seen through a pair of binoculars), A Thousand Months has the texture of a photo album. And in isolating the fi lmic action to one side of the frame, or separating multiple actions by creating distinct planes within the same frame, Bensaidi often parallels human movement to that of the stars above. The fi lm begins on the fi rst day of Ramadan with a shot of a crescent moon nestled in the sky near a twinkling star and ends on Id ul Fitr with a disastrous wedding ceremony. Because the fi lm’s simple themes of entitlement, shame, and responsibility are so wondrously cushioned by and implied in Bensaidi’s comical set pieces and cosmological fl ights of fancy, it makes Mehdi’s symbolic struggle with his teacher’s chair a little less cloying.

(Reviewed by Ed Gonzalez, 2003)

[Source: http://www.slantmagazine.com/fi lm/review/a-thousand-months/752]

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Role-Play Activity /

The Situation /

Please refer to the fi lm stills to help you with this question

When the question of Mehdi’s father’s whereabouts arises, Mehdi’s mother asks Mehdi’s grandfather to lie and write a letter pretending it is from Mehdi’s father saying he is in France. Mehdi’s grandfather on the other hand is not

happy about lying and wants to tell him the truth.

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12Further Reading /

For the English translation visit: http://www.al-hakawati.net/english/states/state21.asp

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Reviewshttp://www.empireonline.com/reviews/reviewcomplete.asp?FID=10148http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0325826/http://uk.rottentomatoes.com/m/mille_mois/http://en.unifrance.org/movie/23415/mille-mois

About the Directorhttp://www.imdb.com/name/nm0072364/http://works-and-places.appartement22.com/spip.php?article17http://en.unifrance.org/directories/person/305623/faouzi-bensaidihttp://www.trigon-fi lm.org/en/directors/Faouzi_Bensaidihttp://www.blockbuster.com/browse/catalog/personDetails/201790

About Arab and North African CinemaDwyer, Kevin, Beyond Casablanca. M.A. Tazi and the adventure of Moroccan Cinema. (Bloomington 2004)Khatib, Lina, Filming the Modern Middle East: Politics in the Cinemas of Hollywood and the Arab World. (I. B. Tauris 2006)Landau, Jacob, Studies in the Arab Theatre and Cinema. (1958)Leaman, Oliver (editor), Companion Encyclopaedia of Middle Eastern and North African Film. (Routledge 2001)Nafi cy, Hamid, An Accented Cinema: Exilic and Disporic Fimmaking. (Princeton University Press 2001)Sadoul, Georges, The Cinema in the Arab Countries: Anthology prepared for UNESCO. (Beirut: Interarab Centre of Cinema & Television 1966)Shafi k, Viola, Arab Cinema: History and Cultural Identity. (American University in Cairo Press 1998)www.mincom.gov.ma/cinemaroc/ Moroccan Cinematography Centerwww.cinemathequedetanger.com/ Cinematheque de Tanger (CDT) www.africanfi lm.comwww.arabfi lm.comhttp://www.ngsw.org/~afrmedia/bib.php Bibliography about the African Cinema

About the Arab Countrieshttp://www.arableagueonline.org/http://www.wikipedia.org/http://www.hejleh.com/countries/index.htmlhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/country_profi les/default.stmhttp://www.eldis.org/country/http://www.economist.com/countries/http://www.infoplease.com/countries.htmlhttp://www.worldbank.org/countrieshttp://www.geographic.org/countries/countries.htmlhttp://www.un.org/http://unstats.un.org/unsd/mi/mi.asp

Bibliography and Webliography

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In partnership with: Supported by:

Cornerhouse funders:

Arabic Study Guide was produced for Cornerhouse (part of Projector: Community Languages) and written by Dr. Muntasir Al-Hamad, Lecturer of Arabic and

Mohamad AlJarrah, Arabic Language Tutor from Manchester Metropolitan University.

Download this study guide from: http://www.cornerhouse.org/resources/

Further study guides from our Community Languages programme include:A Thousand Months (2003) GCSE Arabic Study Guide

Jodhaa Akbar (2008) AS/A2 Urdu Study GuideLittle Red Flowers (2006) GCSE Mandarin Study Guide

Pranzo Di Ferragosto / Mid-August Lunch (2008) GCSE Italian Study GuideThe Road Home (2000) GCSE Mandarin Study Guide

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