83 minutes / Color
Arabic / English subtitles
Release: 2014
Copyright: 2014
The acclaimed film BASTARDS: OUTCAST IN MOROCCO, by BBC producer Deborah Perkin, documents one woman's fight to have her sham marriage recognized and her daughter legitimized by the Moroccan judicial system. It is also a complex and compelling portrait of Moroccan society and its attitudes to women, female sexuality, their position in society and access to education. Through Rabha El Haymar's story, the Moroccan judicial system is laid open and the contemporary issues facing Islamic women are exposed as they seek to reconcile their desire for increased independence with religious and family traditions.
"More tense, more gripping than many mainstream films out there in cinemas at the moment. The story is so strong, and told with such clean, firm strokes, it absolutely puts the thing together in a way which is riveting." —Mark Kermode, BBC
"Gripping!" —Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
"A keenly thought-through, sensitively executed, dramatically involving debut." —Trevor Johnson, Sight & Sound
"Devastating!" —Time Out New York
"Deserve[s] to be seen widely." —Joe Morgenstern, The Wall Street Journal
"For those of us who love our calling as filmmakers, this film is the most deeply moving event in a long time. The director ... kept her head down, filmed Moroccan kids, their mothers, social workers, judges, old coots, and the landscape and somehow got dignity and hope onto film. Order this, show it to your students, get them used to the idea of excellence in reporting, of transcendence, of love." —Emile de Brigard, visual anthropologist and author
"Provides a unique insight into Moroccan family law in action [and] is a scrutiny as well as an assessment of Morocco's celebrated 2004 family law reform. The film documents the challenges single mothers and their children continue to face even after a reform that has been deemed progressive. It helps to rethink the impact of legal reform or the lack thereof on developing societies and the lives of ordinary people. —Dorthe Engelcke, Islamic Legal Studies Fellow, Harvard Law School
Select Accolades
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