Screening femininity and Amazighness in Narjiss Nejjar's Dry Eyes.

This article aims to cast light on one of Moroccan women's cinematic voices: Narjiss Nejjar. Thanks to her growing filmography, she is nowadays considered a promising member of women's film community in the country. Her debut feature film Al-Oyoun Al-Jaffa (Les Yeux Secs/Dry Eyes, Morocco and France, 2003) has been widely acclaimed. I argue that this work negotiates female spectatorship through two main strategies. First, it represents Amazigh (Berber) women as full-fledged citizens away from any process of eroticisation or fragmentation. Second, it pushes the spectators, male and female, to identify with the female characters through this counteractive strategy of representation. To identify with them, one has to identify with their journeys of becoming. The film will be closely investigated from a postcolonial vision, and read against the backdrop of political and social changes that have been animating the contemporary Moroccan society in the recent decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]