{"id":1797,"date":"2026-05-17T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/2026\/05\/17\/strawberries-director-on-calling-out-modern-day-slavery-prostitution-in-her-cannes-homage-to-moroccan-fruit-pickers-in-spain\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T05:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T05:00:00","slug":"strawberries-director-on-calling-out-modern-day-slavery-prostitution-in-her-cannes-homage-to-moroccan-fruit-pickers-in-spain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/2026\/05\/17\/strawberries-director-on-calling-out-modern-day-slavery-prostitution-in-her-cannes-homage-to-moroccan-fruit-pickers-in-spain\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Strawberries\u2019 Director on Calling Out Modern-Day Slavery, Prostitution in Her Cannes Homage to Moroccan Fruit Pickers in Spain"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\tPromises of \u201cthe sweetest\u201d turn into nightmares in Paris-based Moroccan auteur La\u00efla Marrakchi<\/a>\u2018s new film Strawberries<\/em>, whose original title, La m\u00e1s dulce<\/em>, hints at just that hoped-for sweetness. The story is inspired by real-life cases of Moroccan women who travel to Spain for seasonal fruit-picking work. Their plan: to earn money with hard work in hot weather, which they can bring back to their families back home to improve their lives. Their reality: living conditions that leave a lot to be desired, less money than promised, modern-day exploitation and slavery, and even sexual harassment and prostitution. \t<\/p>\n

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\tLucky Number is handling international<\/a> sales for the title, which will world premiere in Cannes\u2019 Un Certain Regard<\/a> program on xxx<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

Marrakchi, known for such features as Marock<\/em> and Rock the Casbah<\/a><\/em> and such TV series as French spy thriller The Bureau<\/em> and Damien Chazelle\u2019s The Eddy<\/em><\/a>, co-wrote the script with Delphine Agut<\/a>. Nisrin Erradi (Everybody Loves Touda<\/a><\/em>, Adam<\/em>), Hajar Graigaa, Hind Braik, Fatima Attif, Larbi Mohammed Ajbar and Itsaso Arana feature in the cast. The film was produced by Juliette Schrameck (Coward<\/em>, Sentimental Value<\/em>, The Worst Person in the World<\/em>) via her production banner Lumen, along with Morocco\u2019s Mont Fleuri Production,\u00a0Spain\u2019s Fasten Films and Belgium\u2019s Mirage Films. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\tMarrakchi talked to THR<\/em> about Strawberries<\/em>, why she just had to make a film about Moroccan women working in Spanish fields to make their invisible heroism seen, and the echoes of #MeToo and neocolonialism of their experience. <\/p>\n

What inspired you to make this film about a social and socio-economic issue that I didn\u2019t have any real insight into before seeing Strawberries<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\tThe first time I heard about this story was through a friend of mine who\u2019s a journalist, specializing in problems related to migration. She wrote an article for The New York Times<\/em> about these women. So, I went with her to Andalusia, and I discovered this crazy world and met some of the Moroccan women. I was really moved by these women who decide to leave Morocco and leave their families behind for money to have a better life in Morocco. <\/p>\n

\tI was moved by these strong women. It\u2019s difficult to leave any country for another country, even for three months or four months for work. And I was really impressed by them. After the three days that I spent with my friend, I decided to do more research and make a film about this situation. \t<\/p>\n

\tWe see horrible things, from bad living conditions and a lack of health support and these women not getting paid what they were promised, all the way to abuse and prostitution. Did you also hear from women who had better experiences?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\tI met lots of women working in the strawberry fields who had the experience of bad conditions and [abuse], but there were also some who went to Spain, had a good experience and went back to Morocco with money. They had the opportunity to have a better life in Morocco. <\/p>\n

\tSo, there are many stories, and they depend on the experience. My film tells this story, about the problems of harassment, of prostitution, and I try to show how difficult the work is and the conditions are. These women go there for a good reason, because they want to follow a dream, but then there is the reality of the work that no Spanish people want to do.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t \t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>

\t \t\t\t\t\t\u2018Strawberries\u2019 <\/span> \t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Lucky Number<\/cite> \t\t\t\t\t \t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\tWhat can you tell us about the trial we see in the film? Is that based on any specific legal case?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\tThere have been several trials, in which the workers, the pickers, tried to speak out about what\u2019s happened in the greenhouses and in the fincas. But there is no good resolution, because people are afraid to speak out, and they step back because they [face] too much pressure, and this is a huge, huge industry. \t<\/p>\n

\tFor these Moroccan women, it\u2019s difficult to speak up and speak out, because they can lose everything in Spain and in their [home] country. What I show in my film is really not simple at all. Speaking out is a privilege.<\/p>\n

\tIt\u2019s a sad form of new colonialism. These women are coming from a background where this is the first time they leave Morocco. They have never traveled. They don\u2019t have a higher education. Most of them come from the countryside. And it\u2019s complicated when you don\u2019t speak the language, when you don\u2019t have the education, when you don\u2019t have anything and you decide to leave your country to have a better life. <\/p>\n

\tI am glad you mentioned the topic of language. I really felt the women\u2019s struggles because I could neither understand them, nor the Spanish speakers without the subtitles. And I also felt how difficult it was for them to translate the different cultural and religious challenges they are confronted with\u2026 <\/strong><\/p>\n

\tYes, it\u2019s also a film about how your voice is sometimes [muted] or stolen. The translation can be tricky, because your words can be transformed, and you don\u2019t have weapons to defend yourself, because they don\u2019t have the education and the language [skills]. So, this is also a film about the relationship now between the Western world and the [Global] South. It\u2019s about the racism and a lot of layers of other layers.<\/p>\n

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I enjoyed, but was surprised by, scenes where the women are joking and laughing together, which shows how they have a shared communal experience. Tell me a bit about why these scenes were key for you to include?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I love those. It\u2019s really important to humanize these women. We live in the Western world and sometimes don\u2019t realize that these people can love, can be funny and can be women [just like everybody else]. The big challenge of this film was for me not to make it all miserable. For me, it was really important to show these women, as real heroines and show the empowerment of these women. But they can also be cruel to each other. It\u2019s not black and white.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\tTell me how you chose the titles, \u201cThe Sweetest,\u201d or Strawberries<\/em> in English?<\/strong> \t<\/p>\n

\tIt\u2019s like a tagline, a slogan. And I like the idea of playing with these two things \u2013 the thing that is very sweet is also hard at the same time. The dream of having a better life comes with the difficulty of the hard work.<\/p>\n

\tStrawberries<\/em> will give the world a chance to see your wonderful cast of actresses, who are known in Morocco but people elsewhere may still get to discover. How did you think about or approach featuring some of the Moroccan women you met in the film?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\tWe used real pickers as extras in the film. <\/p>\n

\tIs there anything else you would like to share? <\/strong><\/p>\n

\tI want to show these women who are often not visible. Through this film, I want to make them visible as strong women. It\u2019s like an homage to these women, because they are so strong and amazing. They are like a rock. I was so impressed by the Moroccan women I met.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Promises of \u201cthe sweetest\u201d turn into nightmares in Paris-based Moroccan auteur La\u00efla Marrakchi\u2018s new film Strawberries, whose original title, La m\u00e1s dulce, hints at just that hoped-for sweetness. The story is inspired by real-life cases of Moroccan women who travel to Spain for seasonal fruit-picking work. Their plan: to earn money with hard work in hot weather, which they can bring back to their families back home to improve their lives. Their reality: living conditions that leave a lot to be desired, less money than promised, modern-day exploitation and slavery, and even sexual harassment and prostitution. Lucky Number is handling international sales for the title, which will world premiere in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1798,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[307,641,2,116,27,60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cannes-2026","category-cannes-film-festival","category-hollywood","category-international","category-movie-news","category-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}