Fata Morgana Europe

This evening tries to follow the trail of “stranded people”: it gives a face and a story back to those people whose trails get lost somewhere between Africa and Europe, in slave oases in the middle of the desert, or in the squalor of crime, or the misery of alienation and exploitation.

The Moroccan Mahi Binebine reflects these realities in his novels and works of art. In his film Mirages, Olivier Dury documents the exertions of a desert crossing – a process of physical and mental devastation – and shows how normal people turn into “illegal migrants” along the way. Food for thought about what may be the biggest mirage on the horizon, about the promise of Europe and how it appears in the eyes and words of these “illegal people”.

Discussion and Reading with Mahi Binebine + Olivier Dury

Moderation: Marie Luise Knott

Olivier Dury was born in Paris in 1967. After his studies at the Vancouver Film School, he worked in various fields of film production. Mirages, his debut film as a director, immediately caught the attention of the media.

Mahi Binebine was born in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh in 1959. He spent eight years teaching mathematics in Paris, during which he began taking an intense interest in painting and literature. Today, his pictures are exhibited internationally and his books have been translated into numerous languages (e.g. “Welcome to Paradise”). Along with Tahar Ben Jelloun and Abdellatif Laâbi, he counts among the best-known Moroccan writers. He lived in New York from 1994 to 1999 but he now lives with his family in Marrakesh.

Marie Luise Knott was born in Cologne in 1953. She worked for many years as a lector in a publishing house and was founder and editor-in-chief of the German edition of "Le Monde diplomatique". She has been living in Berlin since 2006, where she works as a freelance writer, journalist and translator.