475 | |
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![]() Film poster | |
Directed by | Nadir Bouhmouch |
Written by | Nadir Bouhmouch, Houda Lamqaddam |
Produced by | Aziza Zriouel, Montasser Drissi |
Cinematography | Hamza Mahfoudi, Amina Benalioulhaj |
Edited by | Nadir Bouhmouch |
Release date |
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Running time | 63 minutes |
Country | Morocco |
Language | Arabic |
475 is a 2013 Moroccan documentary film by director Nadir Bouhmouch. The film explores sexual violence and women's rights in Morocco through the Amina Filali affair, a young girl who committed suicide after being forced to marry her rapist in 2012. [2]
In March 2012, Amina Filali, a 16-year-old Moroccan girl, committed suicide by swallowing rat poison in a small village outside of Larache. Her suicide came a year after she was forced to marry a man who had raped her. According to Article 475 of the Moroccan penal code, a rapist can escape prosecution and imprisonment if he marries his victim. [3] Authorities in Morocco failed to properly investigate Filali's death, which dominated the Moroccan and international media. Through this horrifying affair, interviews with Filali's parents, her rapist's father, a lawyer and other members of Moroccan civil society, the film delves into the various facets of patriarchy in Morocco while questioning the way it was portrayed by the mainstream media. [4]
Like Bouhmouch's first film My Makhzen and Me , 475 was produced clandestinely with no shooting permits in what director Nadir Bouhmouch calls "an act of civil disobedience" against Morocco's state film institution, the Centre Cinematographique Marocain (CCM); and what they perceive as restrictive film laws and censorship. The crew was reduced to a small team of volunteers who had little or no experience in filmmaking. [5] Instead of asking for state funding from the CCM, the filmmakers resorted to a crowd-funding campaign. [6] [ better source needed ]