Dir. Sofia Alaoui, France-Morocco, 2023, 91 mins, in French, Arabic and Berber

Cast: Oumaima Barid, Mehdi Dehbi, Fouad Oughaou

Review by Colin Dibben

This thoughtful and poetic Moroccan drama is a must see – a thoroughly original blend of sci-fi, post-apocalypse and folk horror that is teasingly sublime.

Itto (Barid) is a young Berber woman, heavily pregnant with her first child. Itto has married into an elite, French and Arabic speaking family. Her husband, Amine (Dehbi), and her mother-in-law expect Itto to behave in a traditional, conservative Arabic fashion.

When the rest of the family leave their gated estate for a social event that Itto is too ill to attend, she enjoys having the house to herself. But then a country-wide state of emergency is initiated and Itto decides to leave the compound. She puts herself in the hands of local peasants in an attempt to reach Amine and his family – and her long journey starts.

In the first phase of her journey, we share Itto’s anxiety, the fear of an unmoored and suddenly vulnerable member of the privileged classes. But, as she moves deeper in-country and across desert, meeting both helpful and mysterious people, the viewer experiences something less tangible.

Itto too – she has a Berber version of what you might call the ‘sheltering sky’ experience: the unnecessary layers of her culture and personality peel away and she becomes stronger, more resilient.

Fluid camera work, sandstorm swirled desert landscapes and Oumaima Barid’s anguished face mix up well in a film that raises issues of faith, class and social justice as well as the coming end of the Anthropocene.

Animalia is a beautiful tease. An ambiguous tone remains throughout and several questions remain at the end. What is the relation between the hinted-at extra-terrestrial event and the odd behaviour of the animals in the film? What are the animals doing exactly? Dogs seem more sentient and sociable, but birds seem to be working up to something rather Hitchcockian.

Is this really about a young woman getting back in touch with her animistic Berber roots?

If this is a film about the end of the Anthropocene, how come entitled Amine seems convinced and unconcerned that a new order is coming? Why is he so sure that the changes will safeguard Itto and himself? Is he on the side of the angels, the ETs or just the selfish rich?

The film ends very satisfyingly with an ecstatic monologue from Itto that reminded me of the finale of The Incredible Shrinking Man.

Animalia is out in selected cinemas on 12 December 2025.