"In the universe, there are things that are known, and things that are unknown, and in between, there are doors..." [William Blake] An old pilgrim dressed in rags observes a flower in the dark of the night ... The old man is a door between the things that are known and unknown ... symbolizes the decline and the end of what we have taken for real, and now it is perceived as ephemeral and inconsistent, as the poverty of his clothes dragged by time. The proximity of death as an unavoidable truth gives his own vision; a new and deeper insight not limited to visual perception, and beyond logic and laws of the world. Maybe that's why in the dark of night can contemplate the beauty of a flower.

"I traveled across Mauritania to find a tree that I saw from my window in Belgium. It wasn't a mythical tree, but rather one that could be anywhere. On my way, I met men and women who shared their perception of this quest and in doing so, in a roundabout way they shared some of their visions of the world and existence. For some, my tree was the sign from the spirits, of the invisible or a call from light. For others, it was the symbol of a history, a culture or the end of a period in time. For yet others, it was a tree that you see only when you get lost".

Una caravana travessa les muntanyes de l'Atles marroquí amb la missió de conduir al patriarca moribund al poble on va néixer, en el qual espera trobar a la fi repòs. El viatge es presenta ple d'incògnites, però Ahmed i Saïd, dos vividors, asseguren conèixer el camí. En un altre lloc, potser en una altra època, Shakib, bufó entre els taxistes, és reclutat amb l'encàrrec de vigilar la caravana i assegurar que la vídua del patriarca vegi complerta la promesa de la tribu. Desorientats, hauran de superar la neu, la persecució, l'assalt i el rapte, però en un gir quixotesc, Shakib farà que «les mules volin» per a travessar les infranquejables muntanyes i transformar amb la seva fe la destinació de l'expedició.

Los Sures is the name of a Puerto Rican neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. Recorded in 1991 and published in 2008, this video is not so much a portrait of the neighborhood or a memory of it, but a journey of initiation through different interior landscapes that are reflected in the urban wilderness in the evocation of death and loneliness, but also in contemplation and celebration of life.

A man (played by the filmmaker Nacer Khemir) returns home to Tunis to bury his mother. After the burial, his father gives him an "amana" to be handed to a certain Sheikh named Muhyiddin. Taken by his father's request, the man immediately sets out on an epic journey to find the long lost Sheikh and deliver the "amana." Throughout the trip, he is guided by a mysterious spiritual master and the many friends of the Sheikh he encounters along the way. As the adventure unfolds, we discover the rich life of this Sheikh and his uncompromising love for humanity. For under his teachings, different beliefs, faiths, and ways of life can only converge and become one The more we learn about Sheikh Muhyiddin, the more we understand why he is venerated across cultures and continents. Looking for Muhyiddin is a deeply lyrical odyssey into the soul of Islam through the life and work of one of its beloved mystics: Ibn Arabi

collection Petites Planètes. ‘Jihad’ is a fundamental Arab concept. In these times of conflict and violence, we only hear the mass media version – the extreme meaning of the term, which has strayed from its original sense – while its deeper meaning is ignored. Jihad can be translated as effort, commitment, and struggle in the broad sense. It is a concept and an experience with two different levels, one subordinate to the other. On one hand there is the ‘small jihad’ which has to do with effort, with the communal struggle to attain a society that is fairer and more aware of the mystery of reality (Al-Haqq) and of life (Al Hayy), which are two of the names of Allah. And the other is the ‘great jihad’, which is considered more important, and which determines whether the success, failure, or digression of the small jihad. This great struggle is the inner quest, the effort to cleanse everything inside us that distances mankind from the real... everything that favours a world made up of separate, selfish entities, a world that is closed, appropriable, and doomed to conflict. One of the most beautiful and profoundly meaningful practices of the great jihad is the ritual ceremony of ‘dhikr’ (zikr), an Arabic word that means memory... and in this context refers specifically to the memory of Allah... a personal reencounter - within a collective ceremony - with the mystery of the Real... in other words, with that which is cannot be defined, represented, or appropriated... that which is beyond physical or rational measure. According to this tradition, only one organ is capable of accommodating such an immensity: the human heart. Sufism struggles to remain within the heart of Islam. And in suffering Chechnya, Sufism is the most widespread form of Islam. Vincent Moon and Bulat Khalylov recorded a beautiful, immersive form of the experience of this dhikr ceremony.