Remembering Nour-Eddine Sail: an interview with Nadia Larguet

In an interview with HIBAPRESS English, Nadia Larguet recalled her late husband’s achievements after a heartfelt commemoration of his work at the Tangier film festival.
“It is important to remain grateful to the people who have really contributed to developing this country,” says Larguet, recalling his achievements.
Sail, born in Tangier, was a philosophy teacher before paving his way in the audiovisual scene. After teaching for a short period of two years, he left to help Palestinian refugees in Lebanon as a part of a United Nations initiative.
In 1973, he started the National Federation of Moroccan film clubs, a life-altering decision that announced his entry into the Moroccan cinematic universe.
Full of emotions, Larguet said that Sial deserves all the honors. “He did so much for the cultural industry in this country that paying tribute to him in his city was both important and essential!”
In 1977, he founded the Khouribga film festival, the first in Morocco, focused on Moroccan productions.
He then became memorable to a larger audience thanks to a very popular radio show called “Black Screen”, which allowed him to demonstrate his remarkable talents as a film critic.
He was the reason behind many current famous filmmakers finding their vocation.
Sail occupied many positions. He was the director of programs for the Moroccan Radio-Television (RTM) then Canal + Horizons, devoted to French-speaking Africans, before becoming the director of the famous national TV channel, 2M, where he first met Larguet and later on became her husband.
2003 was a very special year for Sail. He became head of the Moroccan Cinematographic Center and kept his position for a solid 10 years.
This helped him encourage cinematographic creation in this country and push the industry forward by exposing it to larger audiences.
Those 10 years went in the books as the most profitable in Moroccan industry’s history, with numerous foreign shootings and endless local productions. Morocco went from two or three feature films made each year to about twenty-five.
Sail’s contribution to this industry goes beyond this, he even wrote screenplays for Moroccan movies.
A journalist, writer, and producer, his wife Nadia called him “a child of television.”
She would like people to remember Sail as a man of great integrity and humility.
“Nour-Eddine SAIL was loyalty and fidelity. He was a great gentleman with great values. A unique man, as His Majesty King Mohammed VI summed it up so well.”
SAIL was a media executive, educator, film critic, and writer.
He played a major role in encouraging Moroccan cinema for four decades.
He married Nadia Larguet back in 2004.
He passed away in December 2020 aged 73 due to complications with COVID-19, leaving an important legacy behind, and an irreversible impact on Moroccan cinema.