Oliver Black
Drama – 2020 – 93 minutes – 13+ – Arab Premiere
Morocco
Language: French and Arabic (Moroccan) – subtitled in English
Director: Tawfik Baba
Screenplay: Tawfik Baba
Cast: Modou Mbow, Hassan Richiou, Ilham Oujri, Mohamed El Kachir
Cinematography: Smail Touil
Editing: Aissam Raja
Producers: Tawfik Baba, Rabab Aboulhassani
Awards: Best Film Grand Prize – Seoul Guro International Kids Film Festival 2021; Best Actor Award in a Leading Role – Tangier National Film Festival 2020; Best Actor Award in a Supporting Role – Tangier National Film Festival 2020; Special Mention from the Moroccan Association of Film Critics – Tangier National Film Festival 2020; Best Director – Los Angeles Fashion Film Festival 2020; Best Actor – Los Angeles Fashion Film Festival 2020; Best Foreign Film Award – International Film Festival of Lleida 2020; Best Foreign Film Award – Festival de Cinema de Alter do Chão 2020


Synopsis:
Vendredi, a young black African boy crosses the desert to reach Morocco to pursue the art of the circus. He meets an old white man who wants to go to his granddaughter’s weeding, but lost his camel. They both go on a harsh journey and a very deep relationship grows between them. Finally, the white man sells Vendredi to some mercenaries as a slave, then to ISIS. He becomes Oliver Black.

Director’s Biography:
Tawfik Baba is a filmmaker based in Ouarzazate, Morocco. He studied directing and screenwriting in Casablanca. As a teenager he loved writing, and tried to write poems, short stories, and philosophical essays. He worked in many famous film shootings in different departments. In 2013, he received funding from the Moroccan Cinematographic Centre as a screenwriter in a short, “Ten Dollars”. He received the same fund in 2014 for another screenplay for the short, “The Ring”. He wrote and directed his first short, “Epitaph” (2013), followed by “Winter Time” (2013), “Sand Man” (2014), “Routine” (2014), and “Clowns” (2015)