Educational Media Reviews Online

While Tangier Treehouse focuses on the lives of teenaged Moroccan boys who are learning various trades at a school called Darna, an underlying purpose is to give the viewer a sense of the economic hardships faced by Moroccans—especially young men. With the unemployment rate at 30%, many Moroccans attempt to make an illegal crossing into Europe with the hopes of finding employment.

Sean Galette, a New York artist and writer living in Tangier, worked with the Darna school administrators to bring Roderick Romero, a well known treehouse architect, to work with some of the teens at the school. Over a period of two weeks, Romero and two of his workers, together with eight of the Darna school teens and Galette, work together to build a treehouse. You can see the development of trust and respect as the group works through each step of the design and building process, culminating in evening celebration at the school and the final dedication of the treehouse.

The documentary focuses in on three boys, Amine Dahbi, Elias Guemmah and Omar Bakkali. Each of their personal stories is woven around scenes of life in Tangier, life at school and the process of building the treehouse. Amine and Elias live at the Darna school. Amine ran away from his mother because they fought too much, Elias was abandoned by his father and his mother is dead. Only Omar still has a family that he lives with—his mother and grandmother. One interesting aspect of the documentary is the complete absence of women in it. There is mention of mothers, usually in a negative context—they either nag, fight, or leave, but only the viewpoint of the male students is given.

This documentary provides a relatively current look at a life in Morocco with the social and economic problems faced by young men. It will be useful to anyone who has an interest in Morocco, or immigration or economic issues of North Africa. The cinematography, the soundtrack and subtitles (in English) are all well done.