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| Le Déterreur or the Last Storyteller. Hmou Ozaghar, a changeling tale |
Hmou Ozaghar, A Changeling tale
Video-telling 30’
Before Modernity began providing magical solutions to ancestral lands, offering miracles and fulfilling dreams, one of the preferred tactics of Moderns was to abduct village children for Education, to change them, for the development mission. This changeling child becomes the new subject while the other child is taken to worlds with no return.
Hmou Ozaghar is a Counterpoint re-mise-en-scène and an archival dérive into La Fugue de Mahmoud (Mahmoud’s Escape, 1955), a propaganda movie promoting the colonial miracle of “development”. The story unfolds from the perspective of a French teacher recounting the journey of a gifted child from Timoulay, a rural Moroccan village. Mahmoud, living simply in a palm grove, dreams of becoming a mechanic and eventually escapes to Casablanca. The film was produced to illustrate the first stages of Marshall Plan policies, which also funded this production.
Synopsis :
Timoulay 1951, when Hmou reaches school age, his family receives a visit from a police officer who informs them that Hmou must attend school in the newly built village center near the military plant. Despite their fears, aware that other children have vanished under similar circumstances, the family has no choice but to let him go. By evening, their worst fears are confirmed: Hmou does not return, and no one knows what became of him.
Years later, during the governor’s visit to inaugurate a nearby dam, Hmou reappears, silent and driving a tractor. Surrounded by the villagers, he points to an open field, starts the machine, and leaves the community divided, some fascinated by Hmou’s sudden return, others confused, having already mourned his absence.
