Producer
In the vast expanse of desert East of Atlas Mountains in Morocco, seasonal rain and snow once supported livestock, but now the drought seems to never end. Hardly a blade of grass can be seen, and families travel miles on foot to get water from a muddy hole in the ground. Yet the children willingly ride donkeys and bicycles or walk for miles across rocks to a "school of hope" built of clay. Following both the students and the teachers in the Oulad Boukais Tribe's community school for over three years, SCHOOL OF HOPE shows students Mohamed, Miloud, Fatima, and their classmates, responding with childish glee to the school's altruistic young teacher, Mohamed. Each child faces individual obstacles - supporting their aging parents; avoiding restrictions from relatives based on traditional gender roles - while their young teacher makes do in a house with no electricity or water.
Producer
Casablanca, July 1999. With longtime monarch Hassan II on his deathbed, there is an air of uncertainty weighing on Morocco - and especially on one marginalized young man, M'key. M'key finds a surrogate father figure in "pit bull" police commissioner Daoud and finds love with the enchanting Rita, but Rita is kept under close watch by her gangster brothers.
