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2012 Africa Cup of Nations

adil — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 14:39:47 +0000

The 2012 Africa Cup of Nations is the 28th edition of the Africa Cup of Nations, the football championship of Africa organized by the Confederation of African Football (CAF). It’s co-hosted by Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. The two countries won the right to host the tournament after defeating a Nigerian bid along with two other bid winning nations, Angola and Libya. Bids from Mozambique, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Senegal were rejected. For the first time in CAF history, the hosts of three successive tournaments were chosen at the same time; Angola was chosen to host in 2010, Gabon/Equatorial Guinea were chosen as hosts for the 2012 cup and Libya was originally schedulted to host the2013 edition, however a decision was made by CAF to move the competition to South Africain light of the Libyan Civil War. Nigeria was chosen as a stand-by host in the event that one of the chosen nations were to become unsuitable.

13th National Film Festival of Tangier Kicks off

adil — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:06:55 +0000

The start of the 13th National Film Festival of Tangier, held from January 12 to 21, was given Thursday evening by the film “The Moon” by French director Georges Méliès.

The opening ceremony, which was attended by the Minister of Communication, government spokesman Mustapha El Khalfi, the Wali of the region, the chairman of the city and personalities from the arts and culture, was marked by moving tributes rendered to three emblematic figures who have left their mark on Moroccan cinema: the famous actor Salahddin Benmoussa and directors Mostafa Derkaoui and Abdellah Mesabahi.

On this occasion, the president of the jury for feature films competition French sociologist Edgar Morin emphasized the quality of Moroccan cinema, reviewing “the development of national cinema in its past and present.”

Twenty three feature films and twenty three short ones are vying for this festival’s prizes.

http://www.lejournaldetanger.com/article.php?a=3649

Tahar Ben Jelloun on Casablanca

adil — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 11:32:26 +0000

Award-winning author Tahar Ben Jelloun paints a vivid picture of Casablanca in this article for The Daily Beast. His unique perspective as a Moroccan residing abroad allows him to see both the beautiful and the ugly, and thus transport readers to this magical city.

If it were a book, it would be badly written but for a few sublime pages of surrealistic poetry. It would be a manuscript that an Arab aristocrat let fall into the hands of illiterate bandits. A manuscript from The Thousand and One Nights, updated by modern times.

If it were a film, it would be in black and white, its night scenes denouncing the schemes and trickery of the day. It certainly would not be the 1942 Casablanca of Michael Curtiz, filmed in a studio in which the city’s name reverberates like the back of a hand to the face of fate.

It would be an American B movie in which Burt Lancaster spins his Colt into its holster and Richard Widmark is a fugitive hiding in overcrowded city buses. He would be surprised by the people around him, who take the bus because they have no other choice. Buses in which the crowding screams of poverty and deprivation. Or it would be Bab el Hadid (The Iron Gate), Youssef Chahine’s splendid 1958 film about Cairo’s poor, about the weaving of life, love, and death on the stage of the city’s vast central train station. The real Casa is a film noir in which all the angles are exaggerated and the dialogue is slaps and warning shots, a film in which no one is spared.

If it were an animal it would be a foundered horse—strong, proud, and cruel. A free-spirited horse charging down broad avenues, no one able to stop it.

If it were an object it would be a great wooden trunk sitting by the sea, adorned with the droppings of gulls.

Casablanca is the sepulchral city of 3 million people, the largest in the Maghreb, crude, rank, polluted, restless, wild, crossed at intervals by a wind of poetry smelling of diesel, tobacco, and beer. It is alive, so alive that it can leave no one alone or allow anyone to sleep in peace. Buildings rise next to old slums bordering a medina in which poverty conceals itself in order to preserve its dignity. (You have to live, get paid, and move on, even if it means that a few people get hurt.)

Casablanca is young people who are no longer afraid. Since their first demonstration on Feb. 20, 2011, they have not stopped questioning, protesting, demanding radical reforms. They have courage, imagination, a disdain for dogma; they pose a challenge by the mere fact of being part of a complex human landscape in which anger is expressed in radical rap, a poetry of despair. It is odd that the movement includes not only secular young people on the far left but also radical Islamists. A paradox.

Justice is ill. How is the country doing? Badly—corruption is everywhere, in Casa as elsewhere.

A funny image: Casa is Morocco’s lungs. We say that because the country’s economy is concentrated in and around the city. But those lungs are eaten away by nicotine, corruption, shapeless rumblings, and the ill wind of sad days when nothing works. The stock exchange and speculation. Football and money. The coast and lots of money. The Corniche and its clubs. The Corniche and its hotels. Traffic jams, a deafening horn concert. And in the distance the Great Mosque, a monument on the water built with the money of all Moroccans, rich and poor, the willing and the recalcitrant. A minaret rises 200 meters into the sky, lulled by the sea, hidden in the mist.

The art-deco Casa of the 1930s is gone, gone with the colonial architecture, the secluded houses, the artists who struggled against the steadily encroaching mediocrity. Casa is bigger than Paris proper, immense, overcrowded but alive, stifling, turning its back on the sea. The sea: you have to go look for it, see it, draw it.

Fish is expensive because of the Japanese and the Spaniards. What remains is the sardine, the cheapest fish, the healthiest. Casa and its port, famous for its trade with the Mediterranean. It is a one-eyed world that smells of fried food, a world noisy and dusty. A world of cargo and men, cranes and cats. A lost dog and a blind man in the wrong city.

Casa at night. I see it now. The city gets little sleep. An insomniac city, forgetting itself, casting hallucinatory shadows that stagger through the streets until the sun comes up, fading with the first rays of light, leaving the avenues to tired buses and little red taxis that blare the call to prayer or the latest rap, chanted in Arabic dialect and in anger.

Tahar Ben Jelloun is a francophone Moroccan novelist and poet. His latest work is A Palace in the Old Village. Translated from the original French by Steven B. Kennedy.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/11/13/tahar-ben-jelloun-reflects-on-casablanca.html

Essaouira Gnaoua and World Music Festival

adil — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 15:32:54 +0000

The Essaouira Gnaoua and World Music Festival celebrates the music of the Gnaouas, the product of a mystic tradition with branches as widespread as Haitian Voodoo and Brazilian Candomblé. Performers include the best local and international musicians of the genre.

A picturesque port painted in blue and white, Essaouira is a travellers’ favourite and the perfect destination for a festival devoted to the feats of the Gnaouas, best known for their tasselled hats, which spin wildly as the musicians rock.

Originating through a cross-pollination of African magic and Islamic rituals, the Gnaoua brotherhoods form a structured unit around a master. He leads the music and dancing until the participants are in a trance induced by the mesmeric rhythms of the drums, the guenbri (a form of lute) and the hand-held garagab (metal castanets). During religious ceremonies, Gnaouas have been known to impale themselves on swords or beat their heads with iron balls without sustaining visible external injury.

Faint-hearted visitors have nothing to fear, the Essaouira Festival does not feature such extreme performances: the programme focuses on the purely musical elements of Gnaoua tradition and its influence on African-inspired musicians.

Related Information

Website: Essaouira Gnaoua and World Music Festival Website

Clock Culture This Week April 12 – April 18

admin — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 16:02:09 +0000

CLOCK CULTURE CONCERTS:

Sunday at Sunset 6:30pm

Nomad music with djembe krakub & gambri (20dh)

Every WEDNESDAY at 6:30 pm

Jam @ The Clock Young musicians play live music on the terrace (free)

CLOCK CULTURE MOVIES:

Thursday movie 6:30pm

Number One Directed by Zakia Tahiri With Aziz Saadalah, Nazha Rahil, Khadija Assad,Abderahim Berkache. The movie is a popular comedy in Moroccan dialect about the relationships between men and women in Morocco, on the topic of the Moudouana (Free)

CLOCK CULTURE EVENTS:

13^th March 2010 -16^th May 2010

Architectonic Maroc a watercolour and line-drawing by Mathy Engelen

CLOCK CULTURE COURSES:

Dance Belly Dance Workshop with Saida. Private lessons by arrangement

Calligraphy Discover the sacred art of calligraphy with the master Mohamed Charkaoui.Private lessons by arrangement.Speak to café manager for details.

Yoga Speak to café manager for details.

Clock Culture This Week April 05 – April 11

admin — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 13:28:19 +0000

CLOCK CULTURE CONCERTS :

Sunday at Sunset 6:30pm

Zanouba Rai & Moroccan pop

Every WEDNESDAY at 6:30 pm
Jam @ The Clock

CLOCK CULTURE MOVIES :

Thursday movie 6:30pm

My Name Is Khan Directed by Karan Johar. With Shahrukh Khan, Kajol, Carl Marino. Rizwan Khan, a Muslim from the Borivali section of Mumbai, suffers from Asperger’s syndrome, a form of high-functioning autism that complicates socialization. The adult Rizwan marries a Hindu single mother, Mandira, in San Francisco (Free)

CLOCK CULTURE EVENTS :

13^th March 2010 -16^th May 2010

Architectonic Maroc watercolour and line-drawing by Mathy Engelen

Clock Culture This Week March 22 – March 28

admin — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 14:24:04 +0000

CLOCK CULTURE CONCERTS :

Sunday at Sunset 6:30pm

Jilala Traditional music with drums and flute (20dh)

Every WEDNESDAY at 6:30 pm
Jam @ The Clock

CLOCK CULTURE MOVIES :

Thursday movie 6:30pm

Brooklyn’s finest Directed by Antoine Fuqua. With Richard Gere, Don Cheadle, Ethan Hawke. Three unconnected Brooklyn cops wind up at the same deadly location after enduring vastly different career paths (Free)

CLOCK CULTURE EVENTS :

13^th March 2010 -16^th May 2010

Architectonic Maroc watercolour and line-drawing by Mathy Engelen

Fes Has Got Talent!

Editor — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:18:20 +0000

Fes is full of talent and Café Clock is the place to see it, hear it, feel it and live it.

Last night, British Theater producer, Tim Supple was here to have a look-see at the talents of local singers and musicians. Among the performers Café Clock arranged for him to hear were Jaliliyat, Essaouwa, Zanouba, The Fes Jdid Boys, Annas Habib and so many more – including several talented staff members of The Clock.

Tim is traveling throughout Morocco and the Middle East s earching for actors, musicians and the like for an upcoming Canadian theater production of 1001 Arabian Nights. Will some of them come from Fes? It’s possible!

The Clock was rockin’ as one by one the performers provided a sampling of their musical talents. Tim was clearly enjoying himself as was the encouraging crowd that sang and danced along to the tunes of their hometown friends.

Tim, who has never been to Fes before, said he knew he liked the place within 2 minutes of his arrival. He dropped off his luggage at the riad where was booked and headed straight for the café.

“This place is really special,” Tim said about Café Clock. Having just come from Tanger, where no such venue was available for gathering local musicians, Tim was clearly enjoying his research in Fes.

Bet he’s sorry he’s only in town for 1 night.

I’m sure he’ll be back. After all, callbacks have to be arranged, don’t they?