Farida Benlyazid

Farida Benlyazid (born March 18, 1948, Tangier, Morocco) is a Moroccan scriptwriter, producer, production manager, novelist, and director. She began working in the field of cinema and cinematic production in the seventies. According to Sandra Gayle Carter, author of What Moroccan Cinema? : A Historical and Critical Study, Benlyazid continues to be one of the few Moroccan women in the field. From the start of her career up until 2003, she was one of the few female filmmaker in Morocco. Benlyazid's films, novel adaptations, documentaries and scripts have garnered much international recognition. She has become known for representing the struggles and obstacles faced by Moroccan women and incorporating her own personal experiences into her scripts and films. Her childhood played a role in the formation of her future films. For example, Benlyazid grew up in Morocco speaking with her mother in Spanish and her father in Arabic, resulting in the formation of a multicultural identity. This has shaped her outlook on life and has influenced the majority of her films. Known for her complex constructions of the Moroccan woman in her films, Benlyazid's incorporates several autobiographical components into her scripts.

Career In 1979 Benlyazid's film career began in France where she directed Identités de femmes, a short piece about women immigrants in France. Two years later, when she moved back to Morocco during the time of the repressive Years of Lead, the country had a weak film industry. She joined a group of motivated filmmakers and ultimately began her career as a scriptwriter, producer, documentary filmmaker, assistant director, and a production manager. coming from the ancient name of Tangier, Tingis.

Her first feature film, A Door in the Sky, a highly debated and controversial film in both the West and in the Arab world, In this way, both the traditional aspects of Islam and the modern teachings of Western feminism help form and realise the main characters identity as Benlyazid adapts neither a wholly Eastern or Western approach, but rather merges the two.

Analysis Bab al-sama' maftooh uses Islam as a form of spiritual revelation. The film doesn't approach the religion radically, which allows the film to circulate in Western culture seamlessly. However, Moroccan film critic, Hamid Tbatou, states that some parts of the film are orientalized, and he specifically points out the type of architecture. Since the film plays into Western perceptions and stereotypes, this could potentially be a reason why it's more popular in Western culture than it is in Morocco.

Keïd Ensa Keïd Ensa (in English, "Women's Wiles") was produced in 1999, and is one of Benlyazid's most well-known films.

Summary Keïd Ensa is based on a traditional Andalusian myth. The main character, Lalla Aicha, is a woman who learned how to read and write from her father. The son of the sultan quickly falls in love with Lalla, but he doesn't believe that women are or should be as intelligent as men. To combat this, Lalla sneaks into his home and shaves off his beard to prove that she is capable of being smart and cunning. The two marry, and the sultan's son is still convinced of a woman's inferiority, so he locks her in the basement for three years to punish her for shaving his beard. For the rest of the film, Lalla works to find out ways to outwit him.

Analysis Benlyazid pulls from a traditional myth as inspiration for this film. She focuses on the retelling of an old myth and works to give women a voice in a culture that believes women are inferior to men. Since Lalla always finds a way to best her husband, she becomes the superior, more intelligent one, proving that women are just as capable as men. In many ways, Benlyazid uses a Scheherazadian method of creating a story where the woman outwits the man in their relationship.