Si Moh, the Unlucky Man (Si Moh, pas de chance)

Born in 1945 in Tangier, Morocco, Moumen Smihi attended film school at the influential IDHEC (L’institut des hautes études cinématographiques) in Paris from 1965 to 1969). Deeply influenced by the revolutionary ideas of 1968 Paris and driven by a desire to interweave this social and political consciousness with his experience of the Maghreb, Smihi began his career with the short film Si Moh, pas de chance/Si Moh, the Unlucky Man (1971) and returned to Morocco for his much-acclaimed first feature, El Chergui, ou, le silence violent/The East Wind (1975). Ever since, he has continued to address contemporary Moroccan realities such as colonial histories, political censorship, religion, and ethnic, racial, and linguistic diversity. Smihi’s groundbreaking work, pursued over a long and prolific career, includes documentaries, shorts, and feature-length work made in Morocco, Egypt, and France, as well as five volumes of writing comprising critical interviews, articles on Arab, European, and Hollywood cinemas, and essays on film theory.