Cannes: 'Strawberries' Film Interview: Modern Slavery, Prostitution
'Strawberries' film still
Courtesy of Lucky Number
-
Share on Facebook
-
Share on X
-
Google Preferred
-
Share to Flipboard
-
Show additional share options
-
Share on LinkedIn
-
Share on Pinterest
-
Share on Reddit
-
Share on Tumblr
-
Share on Whats App
-
Send an Email
-
Print the Article
-
Post a Comment
Promises of “the sweetest” turn into nightmares in Paris-based Moroccan auteur Laïla Marrakchi‘s new film Strawberries, whose original title, La más dulce, hints at just that hoped-for sweetness. The story is inspired by real-life cases of Moroccan women who travel to Spain for seasonal fruit-picking work. Their plan: to earn money with hard work in hot weather, which they can bring back to their families back home to improve their lives. Their reality: living conditions that leave a lot to be desired, less money than promised, modern-day exploitation and slavery, and even sexual harassment and prostitution.
Related Stories
Movies
'Flesh and Fuel' Review: Two Lonely Truckers Share Europe's Highways -- and Much, Much More -- in an Unlikely Road Romance with Plenty of Heart
Movies
3 Cannes Questions With... Lucy Liu
Lucky Number is handling international sales for the title, which will world premiere in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard program on xxx.
Marrakchi, known for such features as Marock and Rock the Casbah and such TV series as French spy thriller The Bureau and Damien Chazelle’s The Eddy, co-wrote the script with Delphine Agut. Nisrin Erradi (Everybody Loves Touda, Adam), Hajar Graigaa, Hind Braik, Fatima Attif, Larbi Mohammed Ajbar and Itsaso Arana feature in the cast. The film was produced by Juliette Schrameck (Coward, Sentimental Value, The Worst Person in the World) via her production banner Lumen, along with Morocco’s Mont Fleuri Production, Spain’s Fasten Films and Belgium’s Mirage Films.
Marrakchi talked to THR about Strawberries, why she just had to make a film about Moroccan women working in Spanish fields to make their invisible heroism seen, and the echoes of #MeToo and neocolonialism of their experience.
What inspired you to make this film about a social and socio-economic issue that I didn’t have any real insight into before seeing Strawberries?
The first time I heard about this story was through a friend of mine who’s a journalist, specializing in problems related to migration. She wrote an article for The New York Times about these women. So, I went with her to Andalusia, and I discovered this crazy world and met some of the Moroccan women. I was really moved by these women who decide to leave Morocco and leave their families behind for money to have a better life in Morocco.
I was moved by these strong women. It’s difficult to leave any country for another country, even for three months or four months for work. And I was really impressed by them. After the three days that I spent with my friend, I decided to do more research and make a film about this situation.
We see horrible things, from bad living conditions and a lack of health support and these women not getting paid what they were promised, all the way to abuse and prostitution. Did you also hear from women who had better experiences?
I met lots of women working in the strawberry fields who had the experience of bad conditions and [abuse], but there were also some who went to Spain, had a good experience and went back to Morocco with money. They had the opportunity to have a better life in Morocco.
So, there are many stories, and they depend on the experience. My film tells this story, about the problems of harassment, of prostitution, and I try to show how difficult the work is and the conditions are. These women go there for a good reason, because they want to follow a dream, but then there is the reality of the work that no Spanish people want to do.
‘Strawberries’
Courtesy of Lucky Number
What can you tell us about the trial we see in the film? Is that based on any specific legal case?
There have been several trials, in which the workers, the pickers, tried to speak out about what’s happened in the greenhouses and in the fincas. But there is no good resolution, because people are afraid to speak out, and they step back because they [face] too much pressure, and this is a huge, huge industry.
For these Moroccan women, it’s difficult to speak up and speak out, because they can lose everything in Spain and in their [home] country. What I show in my film is really not simple at all. Speaking out is a privilege.
It’s a sad form of new colonialism. These women are coming from a background where this is the first time they leave Morocco. They have never traveled. They don’t have a higher education. Most of them come from the countryside. And it’s complicated when you don’t speak the language, when you don’t have the education, when you donR