What can film teach us about a place before we ever set foot there? Join anthropologist Sharon Nagy for a cinematic journey into the cultures, communities, and everyday lives of Morocco and North Africa. Through cinema, we will encounter bustling medinas, family dynamics, changing social values, and the tensions between tradition and modernity that shape contemporary life across the region. Each screening will be followed by a lively discussion exploring the cultural and historical themes that emerge on screen. Featured films include The Blue Caftan (Morocco, 2022) and Halfaouine: Boy of the Terraces (Tunisia, 1990), with a third contemporary North African film selected in consultation with participants. For those joining our upcoming Morocco tour, this series offers a chance to begin the journey early—to arrive with a richer sense of the people, stories, and social worlds behind the landscapes and monuments. For anyone, it is an opportunity to experience the Maghreb through some of its most compelling cinematic voices.

Sharon Nagy, cultural anthropologist specializing in Middle Eastern and North African urbanism, with research and lived experience in Morocco, the Gulf States, Egypt, and Iran will lead these three lectures. She is offering this program as a precursor to the OLLI Corps: Culture, Conversation, and Community in Morocco in March 2027.

Sessions may be taken individually or as a series. If you would like to register for the series of three, please click here.