CINE MARROCOS

CINEMA MOROCCO

By Ricardo CALIL

MUIRAQUITÃ FILMES - as PROD

Documentary - Completed 2018

In São Paulo, homeless Brazilians, Latin-American immigrants and African refugees occupy an abandoned cinema and reenact scenes from classical movies shown in the theater 60 years before. Facing the threat of an eviction, they go on a journey from life to fiction, from three to two dimensions.

Festivals
& Awards

DOK Leipzig 2018
Golden Dove (Next Masters Competition)
FICG | Festival Internacional de Cine en Guadalajara 2019
Ibero-American Documentary
    • Year of production
    • 2018
    • Genres
    • Documentary, Social issues
    • Countries
    • BRAZIL
    • Languages
    • PORTUGUESE, ENGLISH, FRENCH
    • Duration
    • 80 mn
    • Director(s)
    • Ricardo CALIL
    • Producer(s)
    • Eliane FERREIRA (MUIRAQUITÃ FILMES)
    • Synopsis
    • “Cinema Morocco” is the story of a famous theater, the people who occupied it and the artistic process which turned homeless, immigrants and refugees into movie stars.
      The past of Cinema Morocco, in São Paulo, was glorious: in 1954, “the most luxurious cinema in South America” held the first international film festival of Brazil. The present is troublesome: in 2013, 20 years after closing, Morocco was occupied by 2,000 homeless from 17 countries.
      With the support from the residents, the crew of “Cinema Morocco” reopened the theater, screened the movies of the 1954 festival and invited 30 residents for an acting workshop. At the end of it, they reenacted famous scenes from “Sunset Boulevard”, “Julius Caesar”, “Grand Illusion” and “Sawdust and Tinsel”.
      Facing the threat of an eviction, they occupied the cinema not only as a physical space, but as a space of dreams. They went from life to fiction, from three to two dimensions – inhabiting the most noble place of a theater: the screen.