Ouarzazate and Oasis de Fint, Morocco's Hidden Movie Setting

Novinite is publishing the last of three articles about Morocco, where a group of journalists was invited to spend more than a week in November and get to know a country which is not far from Europe, looks fantastic on tourist billboards and draws millions of visitors every year, but Europeans don't know about it as much as one would expect.

Unlike the other two, the third article is dedicated to Ouarzazate, a city and an oasis next to it where time runs differently.

None of the texts pretends to be a guidebook at all; it is just a traveller's way to share a few thoughts. The first and second part, dedicated to Rabat and Marrakech respectively, were published earlier in December. 

We sit around the fire, watching the sparks fade up in the air, with the smoke making the sea of stars above us look dimmer and more distant. A few minutes after one in the morning, this fire is the only major source of light as the electricity generator has just been switched off.

There are a lot of impressions I would like to share with Eyoub, a young man of Moroccan descent who lives here, in the area of Ouarzazate in Morocco's south, just 160 km away from where the Sahara begins.  In the first minutes, however, I can't find the right words.

Where Shadows of Berber Rulers Meet Lawrence of Arabia

Just five hours earlier we, a group of journalists, are taking a stroll around Ouarzazate City, a place of newly painted, pink-and-white houses that resembles a movie setting in the middle of a sandy terrain. To compare would actually be an understatement: Ouarzazate is about 5 km away from the world's largest film studios. Most of Atlas Studios' area is a desert, but to cinemaniacs it is not just any desert; it is...