Cinema – Film screening Mémoire Future / Future Memory: Conversation with Toni Maraini by Mujah Maraini-Melehi and talk with the director

On December 13, the screening of the film Mémoire Future / Future Memory: Conversation with Toni Maraini, by Mujah Maraini-Melehi, followed by a conversation with the director, will take place. The event happens from 4 pm to 6 pm in the auditorium on the third floor, and the film will be shown in French with Portuguese subtitles.

In Mémoire Future, the art critic, editor and curator Morad Montazami engages in a dialogue with Toni Maraini, an Italian writer and art historian known for her active participation in the postcolonial modernist movement in Morocco from the early 1960s to the mid-1980s. Toni Maraini’s collaboration with the artist Mohamed Melehi, with whom she shared both life and artistic practice, offered a theoretical contribution to the history of modern Moroccan art. The creative duo left an indelible mark on the cultural landscape, significantly influencing the artistic scenes of the Mediterranean and the Arab world.

The film sheds light on the crucial role that Maraini and Melehi played in shaping the Casablanca School of Art as part of a vibrant artistic community. Their pioneering efforts to decolonize art education, foster creative innovation by incorporating Bauhaus philosophy, honor traditional Moroccan craft culture, and address activism through art in public spaces for radical collective learning are brought to the forefront. The film is directed by Toni Maraini and by Mujah, Melehi’s daughter, who grew up witnessing the unique collaborative spirit of the Moroccan cultural avant-garde of the 1970s and 1980s.

Mujah Maraini-Melehi (1970, Casablanca) is a writer, director and producer. She has cultivated her passion for the arts across Morocco, Italy and the United States. A Sarah Lawrence graduate in theatre and film, she further honed her skills at Boston University, Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London and Actor’s Studio in New York. Maraini-Melehi has spent more than two decades in the US, where she has performed in theatre at La Mama Experimental Theatre Club under Ellen Stewart and other experimental venues as well as acted in film and television. Her documentary, Haiku on a Plum Tree (2016), which debuted at the Rome Film Festival, was shown at international festivals to critical acclaim. The film also featured in the Stranger Than Fiction Docs Series at IFC, New York City.

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Cinema – Screening of the film Mémoire Future / Future Memory: Conversation with Toni Maraini by Mujah Maraini-Melehi and conversation with the director
36th Bienal de São Paulo – Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice
Dec 13, 2025
Sat, 4 pm
Auditorium, 3rd floor
Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion
Ibirapuera Park, gate 3
São Paulo, Brazil
free admission