Simone Bitton

The Thousand and One Days of Hajj Edmond

A former communist leader and activist for Moroccan independence, Edmond Amran Elmaleh left behind a vast body of literary work that masterfully articulates personal and collective memory. This cinematic letter, addressed to Elmaleh by director Simone Bitton, weaves together excerpts from the writer’s texts, testimonies, and archival images, and the filmmaker’s own words to illustrate the memory of a captivating and erudite man haunted by the parallel tragedies of the departure of Jews from Morocco and the exodus of Palestinians uprooted from their land.