Moroccan Amazigh cinema lost one of its iconic actresses, Fatima Jotane, who passed at the age of 60 in southern city of Agadir on Monday evening, after a long battle with an incurable kidney failure.
The late Fatima Jotane is renowned in the artistic world as one of the pioneering women to grace the big screen and the theatrical stage, having participated in approximately 80 cinematic productions, in Amazigh and Moroccan “Darija” dialect.
During the Digital Compact Disc era (CD), the movies where actress Jotane was featured were distributed around the kingdom, marking her strong presence in the acting field that remained resilient until today.
By embodying varying roles ranging from comedy to drama, her works stand as a pillar in the Amazigh cinema’s best productions and remains eternally on the minds of the Moroccan movie watchers and cinema goers.
During her funeral held on Tuesday, the burial ceremony witnessed the attendance of hundreds of personalities including family members, previous film colleagues and fans from the Souss-Massa region mourning the death of the Amazigh star.
Rachid Aslal, an Amazigh artist and comedian, said that Fatima Jotane was among the artists who emerged during the “VCD” period, and assumed different important roles that varied between drama and comedy, but distinguished more in the latter.
Aslal added in a statement to Hespress AR, that the first work he collected with the late actress is “Avoko Sohoku”, in which he witnessed the mastery and skillful study of the counterpart character played by Jotane.
The comedian continued adding that the late woman had been suffering from illness for a long time and did not receive the necessary care, highlighting that the Amazigh film-making community had lost one of its pillar self-made artists.
The late actress was born in Casablanca, namely in Bouchentouf district. Although the actress has Tafraout origins, she did not speak Amazigh, the artist learned the language from her husband, which helped pave her professional acting career.
Jotane began her career in the eighties with the theater group of Abdelkader El Badaoui in Casablanca, and embodied her debuting cinematic roles in several films, namely “With the Wolves” and “The Black Room”, before her star shone remarkably in the Amazigh-speaking film “Tassaste,” in the mid-90s, followed by “Irkan Ndounit” and “Guar Tislit.”
The artist received several awards during her career, the latest being at the Tafsout Festival for Amazigh Maghreb Cinema (FTCIAM) in 2019.
Within the same year, she retired from the media scene to focus on her family and her health.
What a big loss. She was one of the greatest actresses in Morocco. She succeeded in every single role she played.
It will be hard to get an other actress like her fluent in Amazigh and Darija.
ان لله و ان اليه راجعون