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Arab Diaries
Home, or Maids in My Family
Filmmaker: Yto Barrada
Producers: Deborah Davies, Daoud Kuttab & Ilan Ziv
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This film is devoted to one extraordinary Moroccan woman's story. In it she confronts her family and their servants about the relationships between them, and what these relationships may reveal about Moroccan society, and her own life.

Yto was raised in a liberal bourgeois Moroccan family. They saw nothing wrong with expressing left-wing views at the dinner table while being waited on by servants, cooks and maids. This contradiction troubled Yto as she became older. The narrative spine of the films becomes Yto's search for one of the maids who declared her independence to marry and left the family home.

"[ARAB DIARIES] presents a rare critical insight into contemporary life in the Arab world. The quality of sound and cinematography of this series is superb. The films contain a rich source of information on a culture that is often guarded from the west. It dares to bring up strong issues without imposing judgment on the values discussed. The series is a good example of how much more we have to learn about the Middle East – the films managed to raise an eyebrow once or twice, even though I spent almost 20 years in that region. Highly recommended to all kinds of libraries, especially academic libraries with undergraduate studies related to culture, anthropology, or Middle Eastern studies, as well as libraries with internship programs in the Middle East."—Educational Media Reviews Online

2002 National Women's Studies Association Conference Film Festival
  

26 minutes / color
Release Date: 2001
Copyright Date: 2001
Sale: $225

Subject areas:
Middle East, Morocco, Sociology, Women's Studies

Related Links:
Purchase the series on DVD for the special reduced price of $478

Related Titles:
Birth: The story of a woman caught up in a cycle of pregnancies because of social pressure to produce a male child, and two other stories of babies, in need, or absent, in Arab countries.

Love and Marriage: The stories of people confronting obstacles to their personal relationships and happiness in Algeria and Lebanon.

Work: Explores the hopes and aspirations of Arab men and women as embodied in the dreams and realities of flying.

Youth: Four young women face issues of independence and empowerment in Algeria, Egypt, and Lebanon.

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