Conversation with Ali Essafi

A talk with Ali Essafi on his new book, Widen the Circle: An Obscure Experimentation In North African Avant-Garde Cinema.

In order to cut through colonial alienation, pioneering filmmakers in North Africa have sought to explore local heritage. In the absence of literary narrative forms, some authors chose to draw on the oral tradition, the most popular form of which is the Halqa and its storyteller. For a variety of reasons, these experiments were quickly buried despite the promise of the best.