Great trip to Morocco: Moroccan Hollywood

When traveling through Morocco, you notice that so many scenes change in one day, if not even in one hour! It is not surprising that Morocco attracts directors and cameramen from around the world. Morocco is sometimes called the second Hollywood. But if everyone knows about Hollywood, then places like Ait Ben Haddu and Ouarzazate really only open in Morocco ...

In 1962, "Lawrence of Arabia" was filmed here, and popularity began to come to the place. It was then that the fortress wall and some buildings were restored. But inside the Kasbah, it still reminds in some places ruins, and now only a few families live here. They earn, of course, on tourists. Two decades after the filming of Lawrence of Arabia, this place was included in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Before this, the Kasbah was a sad sight. However, for the filming of "Jesus of Nazareth" in 1977, the film crew carefully restored the ruins.

Kasbah Ait-Ben-Haddu became a cult place after filming "Gladiator", "Kingdom of Heaven" and "Alexander". At the request of Ridley Scott in the film "Kingdom of Heaven", the Kasbah turned into Calvary. You can go to the Kasbah either on the bridge at the end of the village, or cross the river along bags in the water, which, like turtles, protrude from the river like shells. The locals are not a blunder here either - someone trades "Oslotaxi", and the local child just clings to the sleeve with loud screams and tries to help "cross" the bags. Only the camera pointing at them saves them - they really do not like to be photographed here just like that, after all to act in films - this is their job, earnings.

It is amazing how well Kasba fits into the surrounding landscape. It was built without a plan, spontaneously, as early as 900 years ago.

They built it from improvised materials, mixing clay with straw. Now, walking through the maze of dilapidated buildings, you can reach the very top by looking at the desert landscape of the surrounding area.

Indeed, with the camera pointing in one direction, we will see a blooming oasis, and in the opposite direction - a lifeless desert, a beautiful scenery for filming a movie about Mars according to one of Ray Bradbury’s short stories.

Near the Kasbah are not so famous places, but also beautiful:

At night, here you can make films in the spirit of the 1001st night:

Atlas Studio

The history of Atlas Studios began in 1983 when the owner of a restaurant chain in Morocco, Mohammed Belgmi, a big movie buff with connections with film actors and directors, founded Atlas Corporation. Since then, more than thirty high-quality full-length films have been made in the studio. The working conditions here are truly divine for the directors: it is always sunny, and in the open spaces of Morocco you can find pieces of Tibet, Jerusalem, Jamaica ... The workforce is quite cheap, and King Mohammed V helps directors by cutting taxes. It is surprising that the Moroccan army sometimes participates in extras and the construction of scenery: the military even has a special position as a "supply of film studios." Unlike Hollywood, on the set of Morocco it is allowed to use real weapons, and the kingdom is actively using it.

In the studio, the first thing we are led to is the Oscar, a small hotel, hung with posters of famous films, posters with Brad Pitt and Russell Crowe, a props from Asterix and Obelix. There we meet our guide, the beautiful Moroccan girl Amina. She shows us a red ferrari in the courtyard and a castle on the horizon: "This is my car, I ride it to my castle." But you can’t be fooled: it is amazing how the scenery and the live are perceived differently by the scenery. In the studio you understand from afar that all this is a props, papier-mâché and polystyrene crafts, as well as planks. After the shooting, the scenery is not dismantled, but left to live out its term. Some scenery "lucky": they are slightly redone to shoot another film. So, for example, the film "Moses", a historical film with Ben Kingsley, was shot in the same scenery as The Return of the Mummy.

Atlas Studio occupies gigantic areas: about 32 hectares of pavilions and it owns more than 150 hectares of land. Over the past decade, Americans have invested about $ 300 million in the economy of southern Morocco, and thousands of people have found jobs thanks to cinema. Therefore, Moroccans are quite tolerant of American films. It is difficult to imagine any other Muslim country where extras would also be tolerant in films about Christian wars with Muslims.

Now Ouarzazate, near which there is a studio, is a rather large city with about 60 thousand inhabitants. Driving past Atlas Studios, you might think that you are driving past a large city surrounded by a rampart. And only giant ancient Egyptian statues give out the cinema's affiliation.

Passing the fighter from the movie "The Pearl of the Nile", which was controlled by the hero of Michael Douglas, we immediately get into a Buddhist temple. It was filmed "Kundun" by Martin Scorsese. This is a film about the Dalai Lama, it was in this library in a Tibetan village that he studied in the film. It turns out that the picture does not show Tibet at all, but Moroccan villages. And all the books from the film, laid out neatly on the shelves, are made of plaster ...

From a Buddhist temple, we go straight to the Gladiator's slave market. Somewhere, in one of these scenery, Russell Crowe's hero "languished".

Passing the Jewish quarter, we go to the Roman square. The columns squinted a bit, and the temple only on one side resembles the Parthenon, on the other sides it is supported by numerous forests.

Walking around Rome, we go out to the deserted square in front of the Egyptian temple. These are large-scale scenery from the movie "Asterix and Obelix: Cleopatra's Mission".

Grinning, the statues of the ancient Egyptian gods Sebek and Hanum look askance at us. They have been guarding the entrance to Cleopatra's palace for 10 years.

Almost nothing remained of the "former greatness" of the palace: the columns squinted, the floor collapsed, part of the wall almost fell. It’s even dangerous to walk: for ten years that have passed since the shooting, the scenery was pretty showered.

It's amazing that all this splendor was created just for a scene lasting 20 minutes, and the Moroccans worked on the scenery for months. By the way, about 3 thousand extras played in the film itself. But this is not a record: according to rumors, in the film “Spy Games” Tony Scott involved at least hundreds of thousands of Moroccans!

Looking through the Asterix and Obelix, you don’t notice the open spaces that you see in the studio: a stone desert stretches for many kilometers to the snowy mountains of the high Atlas. Against the background of such a landscape, rickety columns look strange: these are the former gates to the Kingdom of Heaven. And on the horizon - the very castle in which Amin “rides” on a papier-mâché ferrari. It turns out that this is Jerusalem, it was he who was protected from the troops of Salah ad-Din by the hero of Orlando Bloom.

Another inconspicuous, but colorful "location" - the abandoned scenery of the American gas station. Turning from Ouarzazate towards Agadir, you can stumble upon an unusual gas station, which seems to take us to Texas! Several wrecked cars, a grandfather-guard (it is completely incomprehensible what he is doing in this God-forsaken place), a strange collection of props ... The feeling that there was once a crowd of mutants from a second-rate American horror. So it is: all this was built for the filming of "The Hills Have Eyes 2". The film itself is simply terrible, but the scenery at the gas station is very unusual.

Many moviegoers do not even think about where this or that film was shot: desert Texas, the sands of the Sahara, the mountains of Tibet look natural and organic. But surely in another Hollywood novelty you can now suspect the Moroccan landscape.

One can only guess how hard they worked here on the film ...

Thrash scenery for the thrash movie ...

The gas station is monitored by an old Moroccan who asks for a pretty penny for entry ... And the gas station itself in the middle of a stone desert is lost deep away from the main roads.