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In My Father’s House
Netherlands, 1997, 67 minutes, Color, DVD, Subtitled
Order No. W99606
In this beautiful, poetic and deeply personal film, Moroccan filmmaker Fatima Jebli Ouazzani investigates the status accorded women in Islamic marriage customs and the continuing importance of virginity. Ouazzani left her father’s house in Morocco sixteen years ago to escape the constraints her culture and its traditions have put on women. She returns now to confront those traditions, her own family and herself. Following three generations of women — her grandmother and mothers’ arranged marriages, her grandmother’s subsequent attempts to divorce, and Naima, a young woman who has returned home for a traditional wedding ceremony—she questions whether her choice for a life of her own was worth the loss of her father. Jebli Ouazzani offers us a rare glimpse of the shifts and changes in Moroccan and Islamic culture in this powerful, moving film.
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Shot in 35mm, distributed on Video.
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AWARDS, FESTIVALS, & SCREENINGS

- Hot Docs, Best Intl. Documentary
- San Francisco Intl. Film Festival, Golden Spire Award
- Human Rights Watch International Film Festival
- Rotterdam International Film Festival
- Sydney Film Festival
- International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA)
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QUOTES

“A moving meditation on marriage, loss, passion, abandoned expectation, and, finally reconciliation and redemption.”
Joseph Boles
Univ of N Arizona
“Handsome, provocative…Ouazzani’s debut feature neatly combines staged segs, diarist elements and doco observation.”
Dennis Harvey
Variety
“Strong, wonderful yet personal human rights story…a stunning personal journey through Moroccan traditional views of virginity.”
Bruni Burres
Human Rights Watch Intl. Film Festival
“…a courageous and deeply personal reflection”
San Francisco Film Society, SF Intl. Film Festival
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