By Abderrahim ECHCHAFII
The television film The Night When It Ends, directed by Moroccan filmmaker Abdessalam El Klaï, revolves around the theme of lost love and its deep emotional impact, telling the story of a film director who faces a major family loss. He attempts to overcome his grief and rebuild his life after emotional collapse. The script is written by Mohamed Al-Missi and stars Amine Ennaji, Farida Bouazzaoui, Sami El Klaï, Mohamed Choubi, Rachida Manar, and Ahmed Hammoud.
Aired on Morocco’s 2M channel during Ramadan 2025, The Night When It Ends stands out as an attempt to blend cinematic aesthetics with traditional TV drama. El Klaï uses long and medium shots that grant the film a wide visual scope, contrasting with the close-ups commonly used in TV to directly convey emotions. This visual choice reflects an ambitious artistic vision inspired by experimental cinema, yet it may reduce the intimacy that TV audiences typically seek—especially during Ramadan, when viewers expect fast-paced storytelling and immediate emotional engagement. The wide shots amplify the protagonist’s sense of isolation and inner void.
The screenplay follows a film director struggling with writer’s block while trying to create a new film, three years after a major success. The story holds semi-autobiographical elements, echoing the experiences of many Moroccan filmmakers. The narrative traces the protagonist’s psychological and professional turmoil through interactions with secondary characters like a waitress, his parents, and a film producer, revealing complex layers of internal conflict. This contemplative, cinema-paced storytelling style brings the work closer to a personal reflection on Moroccan cinema, particularly its financial and emotional toll on creators. The film also serves as an implicit critique of an artistic environment that hinders sustainable success.
The actors deliver varying levels of performance. Farida Bouazzaoui excels in portraying the waitress, combining strength and vulnerability, lending authenticity to her relationship with the director. Sami El Klaï, a young new face, performs his role with composure but seems to lack the charisma needed to match the more experienced actors. Amine Ennaji brings his usual style but appears distracted in a scene where he searches for a good script in his office, his slow, unnatural movements making him seem absent-minded. This uneven performance highlights the film's attempt to balance seasoned and emerging actors.
Some shot compositions reveal inconsistencies, such as the scene where the director asks the waitress to sit with him in the café where she works—an unrealistic and forced scenario that lacks dramatic logic. It’s implausible for a waitress to abandon her duties to engage in a personal conversation at her workplace. Likewise, the scenes featuring the waitress’s ex-husband appear flat and disjointed, seemingly added to stretch the runtime or create unnecessary drama, revealing weaknesses in parts of the script.
Through these elements, the film attempts to offer a different vision of Moroccan television drama, borrowing its visual style and weighty themes from cinema. It succeeds in certain aspects, like portraying creative crisis and using space to convey meaning, but suffers from a slow pace and some flawed script and direction choices. This ambition to break away from convention may appeal to fans of introspective cinema but may not satisfy the Ramadan audience, which prefers excitement and direct emotional resonance. Nonetheless, the film deserves recognition for its bold narrative approach.
El Klaï’s distinctive style also appeared in his feature film Red Fish, which tackled social marginalization and contempt. The film won Best Screenplay and Best Actress awards, along with a special mention from the critics' jury at the National Film Festival in Tangier. While focusing on women’s conditions, the film went further to explore human degradation due to poverty, weakness, or disability. El Klaï portrayed marginalized individuals as survival heroes, showing them as resilient and mutually supportive. The impoverished women in Red Fish embody all forms of fragility, victims of patriarchy, religious beliefs, and exploitative capitalism. He stresses his goal is to spotlight these invisible individuals in his films.
El Klaï considers acting a fundamental element in his films’ success, meticulously selecting his cast and working intensely on shaping characters with human, psychological, and social depth. In Red Fish, standout performances came from Jalila Talemsi and Nisrine Erradi, who played "Houda," a young woman with cerebral palsy, so convincingly that critics assumed she had a real disability. El Klaï explained that their work included studying video footage of the condition, resulting in a stunning portrayal that immersed the audience in every emotional nuance.
El Klaï also sheds light on the current state and challenges of Moroccan cinema. Despite the progress made in the early 2000s—increased film production and a support budget rising to 60 million dirhams annually—he believes this momentum has stagnated. He advocates for independent festival juries that focus solely on artistic merit and dreams of globally acclaimed Moroccan films. To achieve this, he calls for greater support for capable filmmakers and the creation of structures to promote Moroccan cinema internationally.
El Klaï’s recent feature film Nocturnal Sonata was shot in the city of Larache. This romantic drama follows a reclusive young poet who enjoys wandering the city streets at night, contemplating houses and passersby, until he saves a young woman from a suicide attempt. A sincere relationship develops, and he falls in love with her despite her emotional confusion between him and a former lover.
The film was screened at the 21st Marrakech International Film Festival and was warmly received by audiences, leaving a strong impression. It starred Malika El Omari, Nada Heddaoui, Saad Mouwafaq, and El Yazid Meddine. The open-ended finale sparked reflection among viewers on the heroine’s wavering fate between two emotional paths.
Abdessalam El Klaï is primarily a cinematic director, with eight works spanning film and television. His films include Six Months and a Day, Silence of Memory, Angel, Lady of the Dawn, Black Waters, Of Men and the Sea, and Majda, in addition to the TV series Eye of Truth. His works range from feature films to series, confirming his presence in the Moroccan arts scene. He also contributed to writing seven of his works, including writing the screenplay and dialogue for Six Months and a Day, as well as adapting and writing Eye of Truth, and penning Silence of Memory, Angel, Lady of the Dawn, Black Waters, and Of Men and the Sea.
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