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Taking the form of a fable-cinematography, Borj el mechkouk follows in the footsteps of a man sent by the village chief to observe and eventually un-sand a system of underground water galleries used by villagers to irrigate farmland. The story takes place in a pre-desert area of Morocco, where water management is a central element of oasis life. The system of underground drainage galleries is called “Khettara”. These man-made structures allow groundwater to be mobilized on a continuous basis. In this film, we follow the man on his journey through these vast, dry spaces. Once there, he settles in and applies his knowledge and dexterity to his work. In this charged and mysterious space, we discover the culmination of his mission. Commissioned by his oasis village, a man sets off into the desert to observe and eventually restore a system of underground water galleries known as Khettara. We follow his journey to Borj el mechkouk, where he works and lives for a time in this arid zone. What will he discover?

Born in Morocco in 1979, Aroussi lives and works in Marseille, France. Driss Aroussi's artistic work is polysemic, borrowing from several lines of research and navigating between experimentation and documentary form. In his practice, Driss Aroussi uses whatever enables him to reproduce reality, such as photography, or to capture it, such as video. In recent years, he has photographed construction sites, spending time with workers, sharing their daily lives, considering men, tools, objects and places. For him, reality also bears the mark of work, the stigma of its contradictions, the signs of the transformation it wrought on our reality.