Sundance Winner Sofia Alaoui to Tackle Eco-Anxieties in Apocalyptic Thriller ‘Tarfaya’: ‘This World Is Full of Poetry and Melancholy’ (EXCLUSIVE)
variety.comBen Croll Recently honored as one of Unifrance’s 10 to Watch, Franco-Moroccan filmmaker Sofia Alaoui will build on the rugged eeriness of her 2023 Sundance jury prize winner “Animalia” with “Tarfaya” – a slow-burn thriller that mines Morocco’s sweeping landscapes for ambient unease.
Named for (and inspired by) a remote, coastal town on the country’s Saharan border, “Tarfaya” imagines a not-too-distant world of extreme atmospheric swings, of severe heat giving way to more intense storms, all while daily life trudges on.
The film will follow Meryam, a forty-something nurse working at a secluded hospital beset by a mysterious new plague linked to the destabilizing environment. “At first, the patients become delirious, falling into delusions,” Alaoui explains. “Later they fall into a deep sleep, as if they’re disconnecting from the world in which they live.
The film builds from this wistful tone where the characters become accustomed to a form of apocalypse.” While channeling contemporary anxieties, the film is hardly meant to depress. “I’m not interesting in demoralizing,” says Alaoui, who likens the register to the weary romanticism of Wong Kar-wai and to the dream logic of Apichatpong Weerasethakul. “In fact, this world is full of poetry and melancholy.
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