For Franco-Moroccan filmmaker and producer Leïla Kilani, the France-Maroc semi-final, “it’s David the Outsider against Goliath”.
Interview by Clarisse Fabre
“A Madeleine de Proust”, such is the image that comes to the mind of the Franco-Moroccan filmmaker and producer Leïla Kilani, born in 1970 in Casablanca and who lives between Paris and Tangier, when we talk to him about The semi-final of the France-Maroc World Cup, which she will watch Wednesday December 14, in Marseille.
For the director of Sur La Planche (2011), social thriller turned in Tangier, who had marked the fifteen of the directors in 2011 in Cannes, Le Ballon Round is a family story, synonymous with the found collective.
Does your heart lean on the side of the Atlas lions, for the semi-final?
This match, I give him a name, it is “David the Outsider”, that is to say David against Goliath. It was David who has made his way, against all odds. I really liked the sentence of the Moroccan coach, Walid Regragui, after the victory against Portugal, which allowed the Moroccan team to qualify in the semi-finals: “We are the Rocky of this World Cup” -So he said. We want to be on the side of the Outsider, and if it was Senegal I would be on the Senegalese side.
You are a “soccer player”, tell yourself. How did this passion come?
This is a memory that dates back to the 1986 World Cup. I was 16 years old, Morocco found itself in the round of 16 against Germany and was eliminated during extensions. But it was already a giant step! My father, who has always been very demanding on schedules and work at school, was entirely addicted to football and did not hesitate to wake up at one o’clock in the morning to see the matches! What struck me at the time was the collective momentum that brought together the country. This is the first jubilation that I experienced as Moroccan. Football is an archaic ritual but also a communion.
The 2022 World Cup operates as a resurrection: I lost my two parents but the shared souvenirs of football make them alive, it is a real Madeleine de Proust … Today I have a daughter and my Tour I transmit this passion to him. I say to him: the Moroccans arrive in the quarterfinals as others dreamed of going to the moon. Thank you to the Morocco team for walking on the moon! It is a collective that has dreamed a lot and that makes you dream, without giving itself a limit, it is the definition of heroes.
what marked you in the game of the Moroccan team, during this World Cup?
Already, I would like to remember that some players from the Moroccan team have double nationalities -Spanish, Canadian … -These are people who have a head here, a foot there. They are in this happy, uninhibited schizophrenia, where identity assignment does not have to be. If I had to quote a recent match, I would choose the Spanish-Morocco meeting on December 6, where the Moroccan team gave a great sporting lesson. Far from the individual flamboyance of this or that, on the ground, I saw a collective body become a wall of resistance. A wall that seemed to say [to the Spanish]: “You will not pass.” I saw the beauty of collective crafts.