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Film short abstract

The gardens of the old city of Fez lie abandoned, while a schoolteacher, an architect, a gardener, a poet, and a dancer recall the worlds they enclose.

Film synopsis

The narrow streets of the old city of Fez wind around walled houses, crumbling palaces and quiet courtyards. Rajae, a schoolteacher, reminisces about the gardens and streams–places once alive with mystery and discovery–that have now fallen into neglect or vanished entirely. She urges her students to remember the stories still living within the city walls. As architect Rachid Haloui uncovers the hidden network of waterways and springs that shaped Fez, Rajae sets out to develop a play, determined to revive these stories. Elsewhere in the city, a poet recalls an old poem, a gardener tends one of the last remaining plots, and a dancer encounters the spirit of water. Their stories, rituals and songs, as well as the daily care of public fountains and parks, reveal Fez as a city on the threshold–where despite the subsiding loss of its ancient culture, memory and imagination persist, deeply intertwined with everyday life.