SIFF: Much Loved

Description

Banned in Morocco due to its controversial content, Much Loved tells the stories of four sex workers in Marrakesh operating on the margins of society. From Nabil Ayouch, the Golden Space Needle Award-winning director of Horses of God (SIFF 2013).

Nabil Ayouch, winner of the 2013 Golden Space Needle Award for Best Director (Horses of God), is back with another controversial exploration of lives lived at the margins of society. Banned in Morocco, Much Loved tells the story of a coterie of sex workers in Marrakech: There’s Noha, a sort of den mother to the others, whose own mother rejects her; the romantic Soukaina, who can’t quite let go of her penniless lover; and newcomer Randa, who’s just beginning to explore her attraction to women. Rounding out the group are Hilma, a naïve village girl turned street-level sex worker, and Said, the women’s placid chauffeur/protector. Together they form a kind of functional/dysfunctional family, supporting one another with lewd bravado and tender sympathy as they make the best of a situation to which there seems to be no alternative. National authorities and conservative fundamentalists have accused the production of defaming Morocco and Moroccan womanhood, but the film’s real target is the profound hypocrisy of the society that exploits women in the sex trade while at the same time condemning them.

Director Biography: Nabil Ayouch  is a French-Moroccan television and film director, producer and writer of Moroccan origin. Ayouch started his career as a scriptwriter and director with an advertising agency His 2012 film Horses of God competed in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.