A Way Home
Fall Grants 2018 - Production Stage
Karima Saidi / Feature Experimental or Essay / Morocco, Belgium, France, Qatar / 2020 / 90 min / Original Language: Arabic / Interests: Immigration, Identity, Creative Documentary, Exile
Synopsis
After years of separation, the filmmaker renews her relationship with her mother, Aïcha, who is now suffering from Alzheimer’s. From Brussels to Tangiers, this is an odyssey of a family marked by exile—evoked through discretion and confession, pain, separation, grief, and joy.
Credits
- Director
- Karima Saidi
- Screenwriter
- Karima Saidi
- Producer
- Karim Aitouna
- Production Company
- Hautlesmains Productions
About the Director
Karima Saïdi lives in Belgium, where she was born into a family of Moroccan origin. She holds a degree from INSAS in film editing and script continuity, as well as a master’s degree in screenwriting and analysis from ULB. She has worked as an editor for Belgian television (RTBF) since 1997 while also developing a career as a documentary editor (‘Femme taxi à Sidi Bellabes’ by Hadjaj Belkacem, ‘Les damnés de la mer’ by Jawad Raleb, ‘Cheveux rouges et café noir’ by Milena Bochet), and a continuity supervisor for feature films (‘Le cochon de Gaza’ by Sylvain Etsibal, ‘À perdre la raison’ by Joachim Lafosse, ‘Adios Carmen’ by M. A. Benamraoui). In 2013, she created ‘Murmurs et 10 voix’, a series of sound portraits of Moroccan immigrants in Brussels. In 2016, she directed a short documentary, ‘Aïcha’, an evocation of her mother’s death. In 2020 her first feature documentary ‘A Way Home,’ was selected at IDFA and in many international festivals. It won awards at the Milénium and Aflam festivals in Brussels. Currently in development, ‘Those Who Watch Over’, is the second opus of his work on exile and its traces. Karima Saïdi is a lecturer at the University of Liège and also teaches at the INSAS film school in Brussels and the ESAV in Marrakech