In My Father's House

At the age of 11, filmmaker and scriptwriter Fatima Jebli Ouazzani came to the Netherlands with her parents. Seven years later, her father left her mother and married a 17-year-old Moroccan girl. Fatima knew one thing for sure: she would refuse to be married off like her mother and grandmother before her. She broke with Moroccan tradition and left her childhood home. Sometimes using dreamy dramatizations, she sets her history against the background of traditional Moroccan marriage. Such a marriage is what Naima, a Moroccan girl who was born in the Netherlands, has opted for. Ouazzani follows Naima in the lead-up to her wedding, an extravagant, fairy tale-like affair that of course includes the bloodstained sheets that are presented to her in-laws on her wedding night. This is the other side of the fairy tale: the bride is obliged to preserve her family's good name with this proof of chastity. The day that Ouazzani left her father's house, she severed their relationship. While she contemplates the consequences of her choices, along the way she also dashes the myth of the hymen.