In the popular bars and the streets near the port in Casablanca, a group of filmmakers conduct discussions with people about their expectations of, and aspirations for, the emerging Moroccan national cinema. When a disgruntled worker kills his superior accidentally, their inquest shifts focus, and they begin to probe the killing’s context and motives.
At the heart of De quelques événements sans signification is an interrogation on the role of cinema (and art) in society, documentary and the real, and what constitutes an urgency for a national cinema that is being born. This unique filmic experience was conceived as an independent and collective effort of militant filmmakers, actors, musicians, poets and journalists at a time of increased suppression of freedom of expression in Morocco and was funded by the sale of paintings by several contemporary painters.
The film was shot in 16mm and developed in the Spanish laboratory Fotofilm. The editing was done in Morocco and the material then moved from Madrid to Barcelona, where it was blown up from 16mm to 35mm. In 1975 the film was shown at a film festival in Paris. Since then it was neither allowed to be shown or exported, its distribution from then on was restricted to secret screenings. The original negatives went missing after the Fotofilm lab declared insolvency in 1999. In 2016 film scholar Léa Morin discovered the negatives in the Filmoteca de Catalunya where the film was restored and finally available to be discovered internationally.

Rasha Salti e Léa Morin