Waiting for the snow

by Yassine El Idrissi
38’, Morocco, 2009

Every winter the ski resort of Ifrane, in the Moroccan mountains, hosts thousands of tourists who go up there to practice winter sports. Ifrane is considered the capital of winter tourism in Morocco. Built during the period of French colonization in the 1920s, it is called “little Switzerland”, because of its chalets in Alpine style. Less than ten kilometres away, in the small village of Afakfak, people live in extreme poverty in modest, cold houses surrounded, in winter, by frozen or muddy terrain. Isamil is five years old. He too, like the tourists who crowd into Ifrane, is waiting for the snow. But he doesn’t await it to go skiing or have fun, as do many other children his age. Snow, for Isamil and for his family, represents an important source of income. Yet the tourists in Ifrane know nothing of this. This documentary strives to give voice to Isamil and to all of the children like him in the forgotten villages of Morocco. 

Yassine El Idrissi
Born in 1983, he discovered his passion for photography at age sixteen. Since then, he has undertaken various professional challenges while working as a photojournalist for numerous international organizations including the Dutch news agency, ANP, and the newspaper Al Jarida Al Oula. At present he works for Morocco’s main newspaper, Al Massae.