Dance of Outlaws

Poignant portrait of Moroccan Hind, a young woman who officially does not exist. She was cast away by her family at the age of fifteen when she fell pregnant after being raped. Since then, she is an outcaste in Moroccan society.

Hind is a young woman ‘without a shadow’: her name has disappeared from the registers; without any personal documents, official address, she has no chance to find a job and lead a normal life. At the age of fifteen, she was raped and subsequently cast away by her family and the community. Her mother refuses to render the documents she needs to apply for an ID card, condemning the young woman to be a pariah of the patriarchal Moroccan society. She tries to survive in one of the city’s slum dwellings, together with her fiancé, who takes care of her. But when he ends up in prison she has no one else to turn to. Earning a pittance as a dancer on weddings, which is a humiliating and dishonorable profession, she is forced to hand over her daughter to another woman: winning her daughter back seems to be mission impossible without any official documents, money or an official address. Yet Hind refuses to give in and keeps dreaming of a better future.