Farida Benlyazid’s “A Door to the Sky” (1988, Morocco, 107 min.) rests as one of the pillars of LE18’s proposition at documenta fifteen, inspiring the title of its public programme and relief centre at WH22.

The film itself is crucial to Moroccan film history, being the first fiction feature by a woman. It tells the story of Nadia, an intellectual punk who comes back in a rush from France to her native Morocco to bid farewell to her dying father. Her father’s eventual death leads to spiritual visions and a rediscovery of a Moroccan identity she long tried to erase. Meanwhile, her modernist brother ironically uses Islamic laws to sell their family home. Nadia confronts him, occupies the house and turns it into a Zaouia (a spiritual refuge) inviting women rejected by society to live in it…