Anthology Film Screening x Book Talk with Moroccan Author Rim Battal and Translator Liza Tripp

To celebrate the publication of the English translation of writer Rim Battal’s autobiographical novel I’ll Look Myself in the Eyes, Anthology presents a special screening of MUSTANG (2015), by Turkish filmmaker Deniz Gamze Ergüven, a film that’s closely tied thematically to Battal’s text.

In I’ll Look Myself in the Eyes 17-year-old Rim is caught smoking out her window in her home in Marrakesh, Morocco. This minor transgression unleashes the fury of her mother, who demands that Rim complete a gynecological test certifying her virginity. So begins a nuanced journey into the tangled web of a patriarchal society in which various generations of women seem to complicitly preserve the status quo. Ultimately, it is Rim who breaks the cycle of dysfunction, rebels against tradition, confronts betrayal from the women closest to her, and dares to be her true self.

MUSTANG, co-written by Alice Winocour, similarly explores the internalized psychological and moral impact of the patriarchy, through the story of five orphaned sisters growing up with their grandmother and uncle. When, on their way home from school, they play an innocent game with a group of boys on the beach, their grandmother flies into a rage, accusing them of having “pleasured themselves” and forbidding them from leaving the house. Things quickly escalate with the threat of arranged marriages. As in Rim’s novel, we see how far families can go wrong in their perceived mission of protecting the purity of their girls.

The screening will be followed by a bilingual reading from the novel by author Rim Battal and her translator Liza Tripp, along with a discussion and audience Q&A.