Dès les années 70, le Maroc a connu, grâce à cinq musiciens formés à l’école de la rue et décidés à rompre avec les « langueurs orientales » envahissantes, une explosion musicale qui devait être pour les jeunes le cris de leurs désirs, de leurs frustrations et de leur révolte.

Dans Transe (ou Al Hal), Ahmed EL MAANOUNI trace l’itinéraire géographique et culturel de ce groupe: Nass El Ghiwane, privé en 1974 d’un de ses membres marquants, Boujemaa, mort à 28 ans. A travers leurs chansons, le film aborde les thèmes sociaux traditionnels (le thé ou l’échange, le feu ou la souffrance, l’eau ou la sécheresse des cœurs), mais aussi les grandes questions contemporaines (le temps, l’histoire, le rire, l’espoir). La Transe, expression populaire rituelle et sacrée chez les Gnaouas d’Essaouira, se transforme en un délire laïque et moderne comme on le verra dans les concerts publics filmés à Carthage, Agadir et Paris par Ahmed El Maanouni.



Durée et supports : 90 et 52 minutes, 16 et 35 mm, BETA Numérique, BETA SP, VHS Pal-Secam-NTSC.
Version originale française, version anglaise et version italienne.

Auteur/Réalisateur : Ahmed El Maanouni
Interprétes: Le groupe Nass El Ghiwane
Image: Ahmed El Maanouni
Son: Ricardo Castro




Récompenses:
Prix ESEC, Cannes, 1981
Prix du Public au 1er Festival National du Film, Rabat, 1982

Since the seventies, Morocco, thanks to five musicians educated in the school of the street and decided to break with the invading « oriental languors », knew a musical explosion that would be for the young generation the shout of their desires, of their frustrations and of their revolt.

In TRANCES (or AL HAL), Ahmed El Maanouni describes the geographical and cultural map of this group, Nass El Ghiwane, that lost in 1974 one of his leading members, Boujemaa, dead at 28.

Through their songs, the film speaks about the traditional social themes (the Tea or Exchanging, the Fire or Suffering, the Water ot the Dryness of Hearts) but also the great contemporary questions (Time, History, Laughing, Hope).
The Trance, a ritual and sacred expression among the Gnaouas of Essaouira, transforms itself in a secular and modern delirium, as one can see in public concerts filmed in Carthage, Agadir and Paris by Ahmed El Maanouni.

Ahmed El Maanouni / Morocco / 1981 / 86 min

Director/Scriptwriter: Ahmed El Maanouni
Image: Ahmed El Maanouni
Sound: Ricardo Castro
Cast: Larbi Batma, Nass-El Ghiwane, Abderrahman Paco, Omar Sayed, Allal Yaala

UK Distributor: Cineteca di Bologna, Via Riva di Reno, 72, 40122 Bologna, Italy. tel: +39 51 219 4826 fax: +39 51 219 4821
web: www.cinetecadibologna.it

Production : SOGEAV (OHRA)

Restored in 2007 by Cineteca di Bologna/L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory, in association with The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project, Ahmed El-Maanouni, and Izza Genini. Restoration funded by Armani, Cartier, Qatar Airways and Qatar Museum Authority.

« It was in 1981 while I was editing a film, The King of Comedy. We worked at night so no one would call us on the telephone and I would have television on, and one channel in New York at the time, around 2 or 3 in the morning, was showing a film called Transes. It repeated all night and it repeated many nights. And it had commercials in it, but it didn’t matter. So I became passionate about this music that I heard and I saw also the way the film was made, the concert that was photographed and the effect of the music on the audience at the concert. I tracked down the music and eventually it became my inspiration for many of the designs and construction of my film The Last Temptation of Christ. […] And I think the group was singing damnation: their people, their beliefs, their sufferings and their prayers all came through their singing. And I think the film is beautifully made by Ahmed El Maanouni; it’s been an obsession of mine since 1981 and that is why we are inaugurating the Foundation with Trances. » -Martin Scorsese, May 2007
* www.film-foundation.org/world-cinema?sortBy=title&sortOrder=1&page=3

(Transes) « A concert film unlike any other, » Trances presents extraordinary footage of the mighty Moroccan music group, Nass El Ghiwane. « At a time when access to pop music was incredibly limited in northern Africa, Nass El Ghiwane introduced an unsuspecting Moroccan population to music that was informed by various types of regional music; incorporated Sufi chants, theater, and poetry; and was rife with politically loaded lyrics. So entranced by the film was Martin Scorsese that he encouraged Peter Gabriel to take cues from the band for his score to The Last Temptation of Christ and chose to inaugurate the World Cinema Foundation’s work, some twenty-six years later, with this title » (BAMcinématek). The restoration of Trances used the original 16mm camera and sound negative provided by producer Izza Génini. The camera negative was restored both photochemically and digitally and blown up to 35mm format. The sound negative was restored to Dolby SR and digital.
New 35mm Restoration (World Cinema Foundation: Safeguarding Cinematic Treasures) 
Berkeley African Film Festival 2011, USA)

– Written by Ahmed El Maanouni. Photographed by Ahmed El Maanouni. Music Nass El Ghiwane. With Nass-El Ghiwane, Larbi Batma, Abderrahman Paco. (87 mins, Color, In Arabic with English subtitles, 35mm, From Cineteca di Bologna)