her plot of blue sky (2023)

Format: HD
Country: UK/Morocco
Duration: 22 mins
Direction: Kamila Kuc
Script: Kamila Kuc, with Rachida Madani’s poem Tales of a Severed Head
Performers: Fatima Ezerkawi, Malika Lmsak, Fatima ben Mousa
Voice actors: Amale Daoud, Lucia Giffard
Cinematography: Kamila Kuc / Ted Grudowski
Sound: Mark Ashworth
Editor: Elizabeth Lowe
Language: English, Moroccan Darija
Producer: Kamila Kuc / Reed O’Beirne

Fused with the poignant words of a Moroccan human rights activist Rachida Madani’s poem, Tales of a Severed Head, Her Plot of Blue Sky is a relational glimpse into the joys and struggles of a group of Amazigh women in a care home in Sefrou, Morocco. While the women engage in creating visual diaries of their everyday lives, many of their experiences of abuse, alienation, loss and poverty, are captured in one particular resident’s story.  Like other women in the care home, Fatima too struggles to survive in a society that, more often than not, undermines women’s existence. By taking their own images, the women reclaim their power to be themselves. The images they create - of themselves and others - are playful yet harrowing, they point to the invisibility of women, non-hetero normative, neurodiverse, functionally diverse and elderly people in media more general.

Made in collaboration with the Centre for Human Development, Sefrou, Morocco. Funded by the Arts Council England (UK).

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Winner of the 2024 British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies Best Screen-Based Practice Research (Short) Award 2024. What the Judges had to say: ‘Her Plot of Blue Sky’s award is for its intriguing and multi-layered exploration of documentary representation practices and decolonizing archival practices in the context of trauma. The judges were particularly impressed by the director’s collaborative practices and ethical approach to working in different cultural contexts. Personal memory-making processes and ethics are brought to the forefront of this captivating and accomplished piece of work.’

Winner of the 2024 Jean Ruch Award, The Society of Visual Anthropology Film & Media Festival, Tampa, Florida for the exemplary use of ethnofiction techniques and/or that are produced in a collaborative manner embodying the spirit of Rouch's "anthropologie partagée" (shared anthropology).

Screenings:
Spectrum of the Everyday exhibition, Voxonica, London, UK, 10-13 November 2022. Curated by Jané Mackenzie.
‘The Survivor Lens: Reframing Trauma Narratives through Filmmaking’ symposium, Whitechapel Gallery, 25 February 2023. Curated by Laura E. Fischer (Traumascapes) and Andrea Luka Zimmerman.
MIMESIS Documentary Festival, 18 August 2023, Boedecker Cinema, Boulder, Colorado, USA. Double Shift programme.
Ji.hlava Documentary Film Festival, Jihlava, Czech Republic, 24-29 October 2023.
The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 16 March 2024. In Film Songs for the New World Programme. Curated by Joanna Raczynska.
Cadence Video Poetry Festival, ‘We are looking for our shape’ programme, Northwest Film Forum, Seattle, 19-28 April, 2024.
Society for Visual Anthropology Film and Media Festival, Tampa, Florida, 20-23 November 2024.