Animalia (in-person & online)

Oumaïma Barid, Mehdi Dehbi, Fouad Oughaou

A sense of otherworldly threat pervades French-Moroccan director Sofia Alaoui’s intriguing philosophical sci-fi Animalia, an extension of her Sundance Grand Jury-winning 2020 short, So What If the Goats Die.

Morocco: A young woman from a modest Berber background, Itto (Oumaïma Barid) is slowly adapting to the riches and privilege of her husband Amine’s (Mehdi Dehbi) family. When supernatural events plunge the world into a state of emergency, Itto is separated from Amine and her new in-laws. Alone, pregnant, and searching for safety amid growing chaos, she finds her own awakening.

Enigmatic and ambitious, Animalia explores class divides and the position of women in Moroccan society, how moments of crisis can empower and clarify as well as destabilise, and – more expansively and mysteriously – the essential interconnectedness of all things.