Filmmaker Hafid Abdelmoula’s “Broken Gaiete” garners dozens of awards and nominations

LAS CRUCES, NEW MEXICO — Award-winning director, writer and producer Hafid Abdelmoula’s latest film “Broken Gaiete” is proving to be his most successful to date—earning immense praise and support from the film industry for its thought-provoking plot.

The 2021 Santa Fe Film Festival gave “Broken Gaiete” the top honor of Best Film. Abdelmoula was also named best director by both the El Paso Film Festival and the World Music and Independent Film Festival. In addition, it has received at least 15 nominations to date and this month it is showing in THE LAS CRUCES INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2022.

“The success of this film is paramount to the amount of work each member of the cast pours into every frame,” Award-winning director Hafid Abdelmoula’s said. “The story this film tells comes from my graduate-school thesis. It’s something that meant a lot to me and it is exciting to see so many people resonating with this story.”

The 104-minute fantasy film was shot in Abdelmoula’s backyard in Picacho Hills and the Las Cruces desert in 2018. The film centres around, Idir, a man who convinces his mother to move to an unknown village. The village is governed by strange rules that quickly create conflict, and each character’s decisions could affect their survival.

“What makes a rule, right or just? That is the question that viewers will wonder while watching this film. It makes you question why things are passed down from generation to generation or family to family,” Abdelmoula said. “That is what makes film art. When you create a space where your watchers can think outside of their reality and see your vision.”

Abdelmoula has lived in the United States for two decades, said he considers himself a multicultural hybrid, a Moroccan American. He has a Bachelor of Film from New Mexico State University and a Master of Fine Arts from the Vermont College of Fine Arts.