Trances

Following the opening with concert footage, director Ahmed El Maanouni visits the home turf, a neighborhood in the Casablanca district, of the famed Moroccan band Nass El Ghiwane, some focus on the late front-man Larbi Batma (1948-1997), in the documentary Trances, 1981.

Opening sequence, from Casablanca-born director Ahmed El Maanouni’s highly-regarded documentary on Nass El Ghiwane, the band sometimes known as the “Rolling Stones of North Africa,” from the restored print from Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Foundation, Trances, 1981.

From a Nass El Ghiwane concert in Tunisia to the celebrated Moroccan band in rehearsal, singer Larbi Batma with colleagues Abderrahman Paco (on banjo) and Omar Sayed, from the documentary by Ahmed El Maanouni, Trances, 1981.