PLOT.

A single mother in Morocco, trapped in a mundane existence, confronts her dreams and fears, leading to the agonising decision to forsake all she knows, even her children.

Director’s Statement.

As a young woman in her native Morocco, my mother found herself stuck: A divorcee and single mother to two young children, she struggled to envision a future for herself. In the midst of her emotional turmoil, my mother took a fateful step away from her life, leaving everything she had known behind, including her own children.

Beneath a Mother's Feet is a reconstruction of the thirty-six hours leading up to this moment of departure, unearthing the dense layers of emotions she undoubtedly experienced.

It is a story that preceded my coming into this world and yet its significance has rippled through time, impacting lives in direct and indirect ways, to the present day.

Here I am, more than 50 years after these events, representing them on film, as a way of making the incoherent past somehow coherent, as a tool to explore internal realities and truth, to hopefully move towards healing and reconciliation.

It is a tale of the boundaries of maternal ambivalence and self-discovery built with scraps of memory and imagination.

As the director, my aim is to not just tell a story, but to invite audiences on a reflective journey of their own. It is a tribute to my mother, but also a canvas for viewers to see, feel, and perhaps find fragments of their own stories.

Visual Language.

Beneath a Mother’s Feet embodies a visual style that is grounded in cinema verite. The film strives for authenticity through extended takes, semi-improvised dialogue and restrained camera movement. Within this framework of realism, elements of surrealism and horror serve as an evocative counterpoint. Subtle symbols and visual metaphors express the inner turmoil of our protagonist. The film subtly intertwines ancient Islamic mythology, such as the jinn, as a way to communicate the unseen yet ever-present, and to blur the line between reality and Wedad’s state of mind.