Narjiss Nejjjar, a Fierce Defender of Women’s Cause

Although her beginning in the art arena dates back to the mid-1990s, Narjiss Nejjar’s real breakthrough in the world of cinema only materialized in 2003 with his film “Les yeux secs”, which granted her participation at the Cannes Film Festival and this managed to arouse the admiration of a large number of critics and lovers of the 7th art, before she won the Grand Prize at the 4th edition of the Rabat International Film Festival, thus establishing Narjiss Nejjar’s name on the list of distinguished Moroccan women directors, because she herself wrote the script and ensured its resolutely original direction.

She began her artistic career by writing and directing short films and documentaries, the most famous of which is “Khaddouj, Memory of Targha”. She has also made science fiction films.

She also had experience in fiction writing, an area she has known since she was a child, thanks to her mother, the writer Nafisa Sbai. In 1999, she published “Cahier d’empreintes”, her first and only novel, before the world of filmmaking attracted her and occupied her completely.

In most of her films, Nargiss Nejjar, born in Tangier in 1971, constantly denounces male domination in Moroccan society in particular and Middle Eastern in general. Thus, she has constantly mobilized for the cause of women, a case considered to be her very first case. Also, all her work, from “dry eyes” to “Lover of the Rif” to “Stateless”, follows the same prominent feminine verve, even if she refuses, in her statements, to be classified as a feminist activist.

Narjiss Nejjar, who studied at the Institut Supérieur de Réalisation Audiovisuelle in Paris, took a break after directing her film “Wake Up Morocco” (inhad ya maghrib) which disappointed critics and which the press attacked during its screening at one of the editions of the Marrakech International Film Festival, considering that it is not as good as her wonderful film “Les yeux secs”. She resumed her activity a few years later, but to this day she has not been able to make a film of the same value as her first.

Narjiss Nejjjar is one of the directors who has worked very little for television. The audience only remembers “Cool Center”, a Ramadan series, co-directed with Hicham Lasri and not as successful as expected. It should be recalled that she has already collaborated with Hicham Lasri and Mohammed Mouftakir, in particular for the creation of “Terminus des anges”.