Saâd Chraïbi

Biography

Saâd Chraïbi (Arabic: سعد الشرايبي) is a Moroccan film director and screenwriter born on July 27, 1952, in Fez. He has directed numerous films and documentaries dealing with Moroccan society and history, particularly the colonial period and the "Years of Lead," as well as the status of women in Morocco. An activist and intellectual, he has written numerous articles and participated in conferences around the world on film. Saâd Chraïbi is the brother of director Omar Chraïbi. After a first marriage during which he had two sons, he remarried in 1998 to Moroccan actress Mouna Fettou (who appears in many of his films), with whom he has a son. They divorced in July 2005. From 1968 to 1970, Saâd Chraïbi studied at the Faculty of Medicine in Casablanca. In the 1970s, he became a member of the National Federation of Moroccan Film Clubs, and in 1973 founded the "Al Azaim" film club, which he directed until 1983. In 1976, he participated in the production of the collective film "Les cendres du clos" (The Ashes of the Clos), which notably featured Abdelkader Lagtaâ and Abdelkrim Mohammed Derkaoui. In 1990, he released his first feature film, "Chronique d’une vie normale" (Chronicle of a Normal Life). In 2000, he directed "Soif," which explores Morocco's colonial past. In 1998, Saâd Chraïbi inaugurated a trilogy devoted to the condition of Moroccan women with the film "Femmes... Et Femmes" (Women... And Women), which deals with domestic violence and gender inequality. This feature film broke all Moroccan box office records at the time, selling 72,138 tickets in its first week. This film was followed in 2004 by Jawhara, Daughter of Prison, about a little girl born of rape who grows up in prison alongside her mother, during the "Years of Lead." The trilogy concluded in 2011 with the production of Women in Mirrors. In December 2015, he was a member of the short film jury at the 15th Marrakech International Film Festival, chaired by Joachim Lafosse.