Sanae Khamlichi
2025
Morocco, Belgium
Moroccan darija
fiction
coming of age | drama | family | women
13 minutes
Hakawati Productions
In the countryside, nestled between the mountains of Tangier, Amina and Nour bask in the scorching sun. They pick flowers, hum by the seaside, carried by the carefree essence of the moment. Yet, an absence lingers—silent and oppressive—unveiling a buried pain that quietly longs to surface.
Sanae Khamlichi moves through life in quite observation, between the worlds of Flanders and Morocco, reality and reverie. With a master's in audiovisual arts from Brussels, she crafts films that linger in the spaces between the seen and the unseen, where stories are not merely told but felt.
Her student film, L’amer au bord des lèvres, was a tender exploration of grace in the inner conflict , selected at the Ghent Film Festival and other renowned Belgian festivals. As a writer and director, she creates from a place of devotion to the fragile, the fleeting, and the unsaid. Her work is a search for beauty in life's rawest corners, where moments become vessels for something larger than themselves.
At 27, she continues to explore the poetry of film, capturing fragments of truth and memory that sit just beyond the grasp of words, all while remaining open to the possibilities of the future. Her work is a constant, evolving conversation with time, always seeking and never settling.
A FLEUR DE PEAU is her first produced short film.
- L’amer au bord des lèvres [مُرّة على الشفاه] (student short, 2022)
What Sanae Khamlichi sought while writing this story was a true sense of vulnerability. It had always been her dream to make a film on the land of her ancestors. To bring this story to life, she chose to immerse herself in intentional solitude—to quiet the noise, awaken the unconscious, and write with her whole heart.
Her hope is that when someone watches À fleur de peau, it stirs something within them, inviting them to revisit a sentimental value, to feel deeply. She wants the audience to connect with the images in a vulnerable way, to journey with her to this very place that gives her a profound sense of belonging. She aspires to bring something vivid, something textured, something that resonates with the quiet, small moments of life.
For years, she has been leaving and returning to this land, a place that continues to inspire her in countless ways. She is grateful for having chosen to make her film here, even if it comes with risks. Along the way, she has gathered faces, untold stories, and fragments of life, allowing her imagination to flow freely in new directions.
À FLEUR DE PEAU is a poetic film that blends a painterly aesthetic with the landscapes of the Moroccan mountains, unfolding a story whose ending cannot be told... Sanae Khamlichi is a young filmmaker who captures human emotions, transporting us through a graceful simplicity into the depths of filial love.
