Reflections from the Unseen World: Films by Women of the Ummah—A Door to the Sky (باب السماء مفتوح, Bab al-Samah Maftuh) with Mounir Aicha Soussan

Presented in conjunction with Women Defining Women in Contemporary Art of the Middle East and Beyond, this series showcases feature films by women who were born or live in what can broadly be termed Islamic societies. Frequently perceived as voiceless and invisible, they are neither.

Reflections from the Unseen World, programmed by LACMA's Assistant Curator of Film Matazi Weathers, is presented at Lumiere Music Hall and features filmmakers from Iran, Morocco, and North America.

About the Film

A Door to the Sky (باب السماء مفتوح, Bab al-Samah Maftuh)
Directed by Farida Benlyazid 
Morocco, 1989, 107 minutes
In Arabic with English Subtitles

With introduction to the film by filmmaker Mounir Aicha Soussan

Los Angeles Premiere of New 2K Restoration

From the start of her career in the 1970s until 2003, Farida Benlyazid was the only woman in Morocco working as a professional filmmaker. Her debut feature offers a caring and rapturous look at one woman’s spiritual and cultural awakening amid the shifting values of Moroccan society. The first North African film to address the social and economic changes as seen by a spiritual Muslim woman on a quest to find and preserve her cultural and religious identity. Drawn back to her family home for a funeral, a young Franco-Moroccan woman, Nadia, starts to embrace the path of Sufism and transforms her home into a zawiya—a shelter and spiritual haven for women. Benlyazid creates not only a depiction of radical and traditional feminism in her country, but also a poetic love letter of longing and appreciation for the beauty of Fez and one’s journey through the languid landscape of spirituality to find herself. 

“I deal with Islam by exploring women and their beliefs. In my films, I have tried to reveal the richness of Muslim women’s culture. The stereotypes would paint them as submissive and ignorant, whereas (…) they have a deep and admirable knowledge. They had an oral cultural memory thanks to a phenomenal capacity to memorize, sing, and recite the poems that have crossed the centuries. They can recount stories without forgetting the tiniest detail.”

—Farida Benlyazid