Mohammed & Paul - Once upon a Time in Tangier (2025)

Name: Mohammed & Paul - Once upon a Time in Tangier
Genre: Documentary
Released: 2026-01-31T19:50:32+01:00

Documentary | 93 minutes

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Genre: Documentary

Duration: 93 minuten

Country: Netherlands

Directed by: Nordin Lasfar

Stars: Paul Bowles and Mohammed Mrabet

This movie is not available on US streaming services.

Mohammed & Paul - Once upon a Time in Tangier plot

For filmmaker Nordin Lasfar, who grew up in the Netherlands to Moroccan parents, author Paul Bowles once opened the door to literature and the stories from his ancestral land. In the 1960s and 1970s, Tangier served as a base for Western artists and writers of the Beat Generation, including Bowles. In those circles, Mohammed Mrabet, a fisherman's son and storyteller in the Moroccan oral tradition, became a central figure. Although illiterate, he gained wider fame through Bowles's writing and publication of his stories. In a context where creativity and a liberal morality went hand in hand with colonial inequality and racism, a complex relationship developed between the two.