The Threshold in the Desert, a film portraying the struggle of Moroccan women in rural areas

Washington- Making a splash in the European political, social, and artistic communities, the documentary The Threshold in the Desert addresses an emerging area of debate in Morocco: women.

The documentary focuses on Najat Aziz, a 36 year old Moroccan woman living in the rural southern city of Errachidia who made a name for herself by becoming part of the very limited 15% of women who are economically active population in rural areas of Morocco.

She has literally and symbolically crossed the threshold of her former life as a statistic, has gone out to work to generate resources and empower herself and others economically. Her daily struggle for autonomy is an act of self-empowerment within a traditional society that predominantly confines women roles and activities to the domestic sphere.

In a testament to her dedication, Najat’s own sentiments about life in Morocco clearly portray her drive to overcome these inherent societal obstacles. She stated in the film, “it doesn’t make any sense for educated women to stay at home. They can improve their lives.”

Najat worked in many different jobs to pay for her studies until NGOs began to provide educational tools and resources for her and the women and girls she was training.

”I wanted to start this project to save children from a difficult situation in which their parents prefer to keep them in the streets rather than send them to school,” she said,

“I had to knock on the parents’ doors and hold meetings to persuade them.”

Najat and other women are facing with, dignity, integrity, hard work, effort, and the collaboration of several international organizations, their difficult social and geographical environment, defying the statistics to forge new trends.

In collaboration with ACAM-APIP, UN Women in Morocco, AOFEP, and Vision Films, Threshold in the Desert has been screened at several international film festivals including, most notably, the Cannes Film Festival and the Human Rights Film Festival, as well as Mecal, Art URL, Mecal, among others.

Most recently, the film was screened for the European sociopolitical community in Brussels at the European Union Parliament, on October 2^nd.