Sohaib El Ouassani, Jamal Souissi – Europe Orient Documentary Film Festival of Tangier #FDEO2017

PODCAST: Matt Micucci interviews Sohaib El Ouassani, festival director, and Jamal Souissi, head advisor, of the Europe Orient Documentary Film Festival of Tangier.

“Europeans don’t know a lot about us, but we know a lot about them. And we want to tell them about us.” These are the words of Jamal Souissi, who was among the founders of the Europe Orient Documentary Film Festival of Tangier, as was Sohaib El Ouassani, festival director. We met both for an interview about the festival, now in its 5th edition, and what it represents. We also talked about the importance of the documentary form in telling stories, in promoting cultural exchange, and in showing different points of view. Tangier, geographically and historically, has always represented a major bridge between Orient and Europe. As El Ouassani says in the interview, it is important to “cross that bridge,” in order to fight back the media’s depiction of the Orient. The Europe Orient Documentary Film Festival not only does that through its film program and various parallel events but also by encouraging discussions and promoting new ideas.

The Europe Orient Documentary Film Festival continued this year, in its fifth edition, in the development of the fields of aesthetic and cultural communication between the actors and those interested in documentary film in Europe and the East, in an open-minded civilized humanitarian dimension and a deep artistic and cultural vision. The festival takes place in the city of Tangier, which represents the crossroads of cultures and civilizations throughout history, and is home to transit between Europe and the East, and the city of precession in cinema in Morocco thanks to its spaces of projection, reception, and interaction. It is the great Tangier that regains its historic role, and bears the features of the present and the promise of the future, promising an outstanding welcome and an effective dose of communication.