Dar Marjana Shadow Puppet Project

In the documentary feature film Dar Marjana, Portland-based Moroccan filmmaker Lamia Lazrak documents her mother Kenza’s difficult decision to leave her family restaurant, housed for the past four decades in a 200-year-old, multi-generational home in the medina of Marrakech, Morocco — a home long ruled by the family jinns (spirits). The film, now in pre-production, personifies these jinns and portrays their interactions with Kenza and others through the nuanced artistry of shadow puppetry. The Dar Marjana Shadow Puppet Project will develop this shadow puppetry both as an artistic medium and as a tool for community engagement, partnering with local Muslim and Arab community organizations to present shadow puppet-making workshops and interactive installations in Marrakech and Maine to foster community engagement, meaningful dialogue, and youth education.

Artist bios

Lamia Lazrak is a Moroccan documentary editor and filmmaker based in Portland, Maine. She earned her degree in Film and TV from the Savannah College of Art and Design. Her work explores themes of identity, familial duty, separation, and the liminal experiences of diasporic communities, reflecting these transitional spaces in dreams and the mystical. She’s worked on award-winning projects worldwide, from short music documentaries in Algeria, the Georgian Caucasus, Alaska, and Indonesia with OneBeat and Found Sound Nation, to directing an award-winning animated short, “Unsinkable Ships” to editing films for the Points North Recovery in Maine program.

Josie Colt is a multimedia artist and community arts organizer living in Portland, Maine. She is interested in the ways that puppetry, film, and animation can be combined to depict the dreamy, surreal yet recognizable landscapes of our interior consciousness. She has worked with Bread and Puppet Theater and Shoestring Theater and was an artist in residence at the Vermont Studio Center. Using hand-drawn frame-by-frame animation, she has animated award-winning music videos and short films. In 2024 she directed her first short film that screened in the animated shorts selection at the Boston Underground Film Festival. She also directed a live shadow puppet show performed to her original music. Josie is known for her work as the artist behind the street portraiture pop-up, Portraits as You Pass, as well as her work with Portland Drawing Group and Animation Planet Fest, organizing for accessible art opportunities and building creative community within Maine.

Social media
Lamia Lazrak | Instagram
Josie Colt | Instagram
Dar Marjana (the film) | Instagram

Cover image: Screenshot of shadow puppet test shooting, character puppet of filmmaker Lamia Lazrak