Animalia

Director: Sophia Alaoui

2023 / 91min / DCP

Alaoui’s atmospheric and entrancing debut feature stars a superb Oumaïma Barid as Itto, a newly married and heavily pregnant woman from a rural Berber background who is separated from her husband (Mehdi Dehbi) and his upper-class family when extraterrestrials touching down outside Casablanca leads to a national state of emergency, using every resource at her command to find her way back to a “home” in which she’s often made to feel like an unwanted alien guest herself. A wry study of class divisions in contemporary Morocco that’s also a taut space invaders thriller, bolstered by Amine Bouhafa’s ominous, brooding score and the gorgeous photography of DP Noé Bach.