After Africa, the film “Indigo” by Moroccan director Selma Bargach travels to Spain to be screened at the 16th edition of the El OJO COJO International Film Festival in Madrid in November. This film event aims to promote intercultural dialogue, the dissemination of quality works and awareness of the various facets and prisms of reality, while avoiding falling into clichés. A great pride for filmmaker Selma, whose feature film has, since its release, won several prizes and mentions.
Indeed, “Indigo” has always been well received at its screenings, both by professionals and critics and by the general public. He also received the African Critics’ Award, Paulin Soumanon Vieyra, at the 26th edition of the Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (FESPACO), the Award for Best International Screenplay at the 23rd edition of the African Ecrans Noirs festival in Yaounde (Cameroon), then the Award for Best Female Role through the actress Khouloud at the 21st edition of the Khouribga African Film Festival. Another award Selma got for her film is July 2019/ CIFEJ at the 22nd Zanzibar International Film Festival (Tanzania). It is an honour for Selma Bargach to see her second feature film, after “La 5ème corde”, impress film lovers and professionals in the sector.
Produced by Souad Lamriki (Agora film) and with a cast including actors Rim Kettani, Khouloud Bettioui, Marwa Khalil, Mohamed Wahib Abkari, Aicha Mahmah, Karim Saidi, Malek Akhmis, Sarah Perles and Fadwa Taleb, the director has put into images a rather extraordinary story about the young Nora, aged 13, who feels abandoned by her entourage. Following an emotional shock, she takes refuge in the world of clairvoyance to escape the brutality of her brother Mehdi. She discovers a gift that will weigh on her like a curse and cause misunderstandings around her. Her entourage is disturbed by her visions but seems indifferent to her suffering. “Indigo” tells the story of this child’s initiatory journey in search of his own truth. Through this film, Selma Bargach wanted to tell the story of this child, confronted with a society where people are lost because they are preoccupied by their problems and dominated by their egos. “It is also the rejection and abandonment of difference by a system that even becomes uniform in the perception of each other’s world. There is a form of alienation of the individual in an environment that is less and less attentive to his inner world and his spirituality”, explains the director. And she adds that “everywhere, people are looking for their place in the world, in their family, in their couple. There is in Nora, this solitary child, left to herself, who desperately seeks in some way to prove that she exists in her particularity and in her difference. And there are the other characters, drowned in an unlikely system, tired and dreamy, who go through time desperately looking for a way out, while ignoring the suffering of childhood,” she says. The national release of the film “Indigo” was scheduled for April 8, but was postponed due to the pandemic situation in Morocco.
The director’s career path
A native of Casablanca, Selma Bargach holds a doctorate in art and art sciences, audiovisual option (Sorbonne in Paris, 1997). She has also supported a doctorate on the theme “The status and role of women in Moroccan cinema”. She made several short films before moving on to feature films. Selma holds the position of audiovisual manager at the ONA Foundation. Her first feature film “La 5ème Corde” (The Fifth Rope) has travelled the world and won several awards in different international festivals.
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