Monday, September 26, 2011

Harrer, Harrer Morocco

Morocco
A last minute decision allowed me to step in and make the trip to Marrakech to teach the "Harrer, Harrer" or "Liberate, Liberate" workshop.
This workshop has been traveling all around the middle east including countries like Amman, Beirut, Cairo, Jaffa, Tunis and more. It is a 7 day workshop that allows the participants to tell stories about the Arab Spring and revolution. In each workshop, at least 6 one minute films are produced. All of these films will make up a massive exhibition at this years Doha Tribeca Film Festival.

We flew from Doha on Thursday the 15th to Tunis, then Casablanca and finally Marrakech. We were greeted by a driver with our names on a dry erase board. "Mr. Justin Kramer and Mr. Alaa Mosbah"...... so official.
He shuttled us off to our hotel where we cleaned up and went out to explore.
We had lunch a small cafe and then went exploring Jemma El F'na (one of the largest souqs in all of North Africa). The place was buzzing with life.
Performers (or more commonly known as Hustlers) were playing for change. Everyone had a trick to show you to get your money.
Water Man
Millions of people bustling around. From one performer to another. One spice cart to the next. One rug shop to a lamp shop to a jewelry shop to another spice cart to another man holding a monkey.
We posted up on the roof of a cafe to get a full view of the mayhem.
Jemma El Fna - Marrakech
Over the next couple days, we worked for hours on end with our students and made it back out to the Medina a few times to take in the sites again. The place never got old. There was always something new to see or do.
One day we went down to the square just before the sun set, in search of monkeys.
As soon as we got there, we found one.
Apprehensively, I allowed it to climb up on my arm for a picture. As soon as he got up there, he popped his little dick out.
Me and Friend (with dick out)
We snapped a few photos and we were ready to move on. But the monkey had other plans.
He climbed up on top of my head and sat down. I laughed but was kinda freaked out because he wasn't the most clean monkey I have ever seen. Reluctantly, I let him stay for a minute while Alaa snapped photos.
Monkey on my head
Then, like any monkey, he started searching my head for bugs.
I thought this was particularly cute until he found something he didn't like and started clawing at my scalp. It felt like his little monkey paws were peeling the layers of flesh on my head away. I freaked. I tried to swat him off my head but he wasn't going anywhere. The owner yanked his chain and the monkey bared his teeth and jumped back to his master.
The rest of the day I spent freaking out and thinking that I had contracted some kind of crazy monkey disease.
We ended the day by going to a Circus.
I spent most of the show freaking out thinking that the white tiger or lion might smell the monkey on me and attack. Luckily they didn't. But a clown DID throw a whole bag of popcorn on me in front of everyone. I spent the next 5 days searching Morocco for him so I could kick his clown ass.

The workshop was amazing and kicked our asses. We worked 15 hour days and shot 6 films in 2 days. At the end of the 7th day, we screened all of the films for a crowd of about 100 people. We were so proud of the work the students did.
Harrer Harrer Marrakech team
We all celebrated with a final dinner at the Medina and Alaa got to make his very own one minute film.
The next morning, we got on a train to Casablanca at 7am and spent a few hours there with Ali Essafi. We walked around, hit the Atlantic, visited the largest mosque in Casa, and explored as much as we could before heading back to the airport to fly home.

The trip was amazing and I will definitely be returning to Morocco in the near future.
Except the next time, I won't go anywhere near those little bastard monkeys.

*More photos from the trip

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