Before we talk about the most popular movies and TV shows that were filmed in Essaouira Mogador, let’s zoom out a little to encompass the geographical location that is Morocco.
Also named by many as the land of contrasts, thanks to the richness of its history as well as its geographical attributes’ diversity, Morocco has a wide variety of contrasting sceneries and historical cities that made it into a hotspot for international film productions.
One can literally be standing on the Sahara sand dunes while looking at a huge mountainous snowy backdrop, which explains why the world’s largest film studio is in Morocco: Atlas Studios – Ouarzazate.
No wonder some of Hollywood’s most popular movies and television shows have been filmed in Morocco.
Here are a few:
Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), using the worldwide famous Jemaa el-Fnaa square as a backdrop of his movie.
David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia (1962), filmed partly in a beautiful village, that’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site called Ait Benhaddou.
John Huston’s The Man Who Would Be King (1975), that was filmed partly in a small village in the Al-Haouz region, called Tagadirt n’Bour.
Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Babel (2006), filmed partly in a distant Moroccan Berber village in the Atlas Mountains called Taguenzalt.
Essaouira (spelled Essaouira in Latin script, and الصويرة in Arabic script) is an ancient walled city in Morocco (northwest coast of Africa) that is located on the Atlantic coast, with a large number of residents living in the old town with its narrow alleyways and small “Hanouts” (traditional small shops).
It’s one of the most popular destinations for tourists in this area thanks to its picturesque old city, vast stretches of beautiful beaches as well as quaint villages and the many historical sites.
Historically speaking, Essaouira has been a strategic trade post for centuries. It has been occupied since prehistoric times and has long been considered one of the best anchorages of the Moroccan coast.
Here are some stations which illustrate the richness of Essaouira’s history, and which will help us explore why Essaouira got more than its fair share from the newly arriving film industry, making it an up and coming destination for film makers:
The Carthaginian navigator Hanno visited Essaouira in the 5th century BC to establish the trading post of Arambys.
The Berber king Juba II established a Tyrian purple factory around the end of the 1st century BCE.
The factory was processing the murex and purpura shells found in the intertidal rocks on the coast of Essaouira and the Iles Purpuraires.
This dye colored the purple stripe in the togas worn by the Senators of Imperial Rome.
During the Middle Ages period, a Muslim saint named Sidi Mogdoul was buried in Essaouira.
This is believed to be the reason giving its origin to the name “Mogador”.
In 1506, the Portuguese king D. Manuel I, seized six Moroccan towns and built six fortresses on the Moroccan Atlantic coast, including one named Castelo Real de Mogador (actual Essaouira).
However, the fortress of Mogador fell to the local resistance of the Regraga fraternity four years after its establishment, in 1510 and was defended under Abd el-Malek II.
And despite the later conquering attempts by powers like Spain, England, the Netherlands & France in the 16th century, those attempts remained in vain.
Essaouira continued to be a haven for the export of sugar as well as molasses and an anchorage for pirates.
France was involved in an early attempt to colonize Mogador in 1629 to create a base against the Sultan of Marrakesh.
After bombarding Salé, the French headed to Mogador.
The men of Razilly saw the fortress of Castelo Real in Mogador and landed 100 men with supplies on Mogador island. After a few days, however, the French colonists reembarked & departed back to Salé, before signing a treaty with Abd el-Malek II later in 1631 giving France preferential treatment.
The present city of Essaouira was built during the mid-eighteenth century by the Moroccan King Mohammed III who reoriented his kingdom toward increased exchanges with European powers, choosing Mogador as his key location, establishing a harbour at the closest possible point to Marrakesh.
Additionally, he built further the fortress and city along modern lines.
Originally called “Souira” (“the small fortress”), the name became “Es-Saouira” (“the beautifully designed”).
From the time of its rebuilding by Muhammad III until the end of the nineteenth century, Essaouira served as Morocco’s principal port, offering the caravan trade goods from sub-Saharan Africa & Timbuktu to the world.
Jews once comprised the majority of the population.
The Jewish quarter (or Mellah) contains many old synagogues, and the town also has a large Jewish cemetery.
King Mohammed III encouraged Moroccan Jews to settle in the town and handle the trade with Europe.
The city flourished until the caravan trade died, superseded by direct European shipping trade with sub-Saharan Africa, causing (among other factors) numerous jewish families to leave the city.
Essaouira became the first seaport of Morocco, with trade volumes around double those of Rabat, encouraging diplomatic and trade representations to be established by European powers in the city.
By the 1820s, European diplomats were concentrated in either Essaouira or Tangier.
Essaouira was bombarded and briefly occupied by the French Navy under the Prince de Joinville on 16 August 1844, in the Bombardment of Mogador, an important battle of the First Franco-Moroccan War.
From 1912 to 1956, Essaouira was part of the French protectorate of Morocco. Mogador was used as a base for a military expedition and 8,000 French troops were located outside the city.
France had an important administrative, military and economic presence.
By the beginning in the late 1960s, Essaouira became a kind of a hippie hangout, as almost 60,000 visited at that time from all nations, including celebrities like Jim Morrison, Paul McCartney and Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin lead singer).
In the summer of 1969, Jimmy Hendrix (allegedly) also visited Diabat, located 5 km (3 miles) from Essaouira, hence the Jimmy Hendrix café, in the village.
Diabat, a village with an air of sanctuary, half rock and half flower power, became a tourist magnet later on.
Today the city is experiencing unprecedented growth with tourists and film aficionados coming to visit and / or settle in Essaouira’s beautiful atmosphere.
Essaouira is not only a destination for surfers, kite-surfers, windsurfers and sightseeing tourists etc.. but also for movies buffs, who visit the city to follow in the footsteps of movies and TV Shows
that were filmed in Essaouira.
Please note that the following are only a few
movies and TV shows that were filmed in Essaouira, at no particular order.
The film ALEXANDER (2004) is a historical drama based on the life of Alexander the Great, and is about his life starting from his childhood and ending with his death due to illness at the age of 32.
Alexander, the King of Macedonia and one of the greatest army leaders in the history of warfare, conquered ninety percent of the known world by the age of twenty-five, leading his armies through twenty-two thousand miles of sieges and conquests in just eight years.
Directed by Oliver Stone, starring Colin Farrell, Angelina Jolie, Anthony Hopkins, Jared Leto & Val Kilmer, it’s one of many famous movies and TV shows that were filmed in Essaouira and shares many similarities with other popular films that were shot in this city.
The areas around Essaouira formed a lovely setting for the Macedonian mountains, tiny basins, agricultural regions, and rivers.
The scene in the Macedonian horse market where young Alexander (Connor Paolo) tames and subdues Bucephalus was filmed in the near of Essaouira.
The epic adventure “Kingdom of Heaven” is about a regular man who is dragged into a decades-long struggle.
A blacksmith named Balian von Ibelin traveled to Jerusalem during the 12th century (Middle Ages) Crusades, where the religious wars were raging.
He served a doomed monarch, fell in love with an exotic and forbidden queen, and rose to knighthood as a stranger in a foreign realm.
In the end, he must defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem against overwhelming armies while attempting to maintain a fragile peace.
From the master of the contemporary epic, Ridley Scott.
Kingdom of Heaven was shot in Spain (Seville), for scenes set in 12th century France, and in Morocco for those set in the Holy Land.
The last filming location was Essaouira. The port city was used for its streets and old walls which pass for details of ancient Jerusalem.
This is also the beach where Balian ends up after his shipwreck is located.
Othello was the first American film on Moroccan soil.
Despite its little budget, Orson Welles’ Othello is a tribute to the filmmaker’s unwavering determination to pursue his vision to the very end.
Welles, who is unrivaled in his passionate identification with Shakespeare’s imagination, brings his inventive visual approach to this enduring tragedy of jealousy, bigotry and rage, as well as giving a towering performance as the Moor of Venice.
Without money, but with cameras and film, Orson Welles improvises by shooting some shots of the fortifications, also aided by local artisans, who make him clothes with burlap bags and armor with tins of sardines (local specialty) nailed together, the filmmaker begins with this film to forge his legend and won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival
The Moorish General Othello is manipulated into thinking that his new wife Desdemona (daughter of a Venetian aristocrat) has been carrying on an affair with his Lieutenant Michael Cassio when in reality, it is all part of the scheme of Othello’s bitter and envious underling named Iago who knows Othello’s weakness and how to exploit it.
Season 3: The “Morocco season”
Game of Thrones is an epic American fantasy drama television series, the show has achieved one of the highest global popularity ratings to date.
Set on fictional continents, Essaouira’s landscapes play an important role in the storyline, representing the city of Astapor.
Lord Varys’ character, played by Conleth Hill had to be humble, quiet and bald, so Conleth had to shave his hair every time filming resumed.
When Rory McCan (The Hound) came into the picture, facial hair was needed to make him look strong and fearsome.
So Conleth’s hair was used to create the Hound’s facial hair.
After looking at around 300 girls in England to find the right “Arya”, Benioff (The showrunner) ended up finding Maisie Williams while going through audition videos in Morocco.
Due to bad Wi-Fi in a Moroccan hotel lobby, they selected her video based on a small thumbnail that looked promising.
The audition video took about 40 minutes to download, but the wait was worthwhile.
Game of Thrones owed much of its iconic character design to the genius of costume designer Michele Clapton, who was supervising a team of around 70 to 100 costumers for each season.
In one of her interviews, Clapton stated that many of the show’s luxurious-looking capes were created from IKEA rugs.
This revelation led IKEA to create a set of how-to instructions if you want to turn your SKOLD rug into a cape like Jon Snow’s.
Peter Dinklage revealed in a Reddit AMA, that he wasn’t immediately sold on Game of Thrones, due to it being a “fantasy genre”.
Peter Dinklage signed on only after David Benioff assured him that this character is far more complex and it has more to it than the cast imagined.
Living Language released a conversational language course in 2014, that will help you speak Khal Drogo’s language very quick.
David J. Peterson who worked with HBO to create the Dothraki heard on the show, is the linguist who crafted the course.
Here is where you can learn a few Dothraki phrases.
The night before he auditioned for Game of Thrones, Kit Harington was in a McDonald’s late at night with a date.
As it was crowded, they grabbed a seat at the next table which already had another couple sitting. Shortly thereafter however, a guy across from them began making inappropriate comments to Harington’s date.
But when Harington stood up and challenged the guy, he realized how much the guy is bigger than him and Harington was “battered” and ended up with a black eye.
The funny thing is that Harington thinks that his black eye is partly the reason why he landed the role.
“I think that man who punched me in the face may have helped me get the job,” he said. “So if you’re watching, thank you.”
Game of Thrones was the most pirated show for 6 consecutive years (2012-2017) according to TorrentFreak.
In 2015 alone, GOT had more than double the illegal downloads of the next most pirated show, The Walking Dead.
Furthermore, according to The Verge, in 2019, the premiere of the final season was pirated 55 million times in just 24 hours.
It will take place around 300 years before the events of Game of Thrones, and will be called: House of the Dragon.
However, the show won’t feature any of the previous characters we know.
Only the behind-the-scenes team will have a few familiar faces including Ryan Condal, who will be the co-show-runner alongside director Miguel Sapochnik.
In Game of Thrones, Essaouira has a third name: Astapor. The “red city” is where Daenerys seizes the Army of the Immaculate (Immaculate in original version). Essaouira is fabulously highlighted in the series. It can be seen from the sea when the boats approach its ramparts; we see the Immaculate in arms on the Sqala, posted on the towers, and Daenerys surveying the port.
Nine noble and powerful families battle for supremacy and for control of the Seven Kingdoms in the mythical lands of Westeros, as an ancient enemy who rested for thousands of years rises once again to threaten them all.
In the trailer for John Wick 3 – Parabellum, we discover images of Essaouira against the backdrop of a bitter war between the allies of John Wick (Keanu Reeves), and those who want to hide the now famous hitman.
Among the filming scenes, we can recognize the halls of the fish souk and the ramparts of the Skala d’Essaouira.
John Wick, the super assassin is on the run after killing a member of the of the shadowy International Assassins Guild, the High Table, making him “excommunicado” and resulting in putting a $ 14 million bounty on his head.
This makes him into a target of an army of ruthless bounty-hunting killers on his trail.
Bollywood has once again settled in Morocco for a feature film!
The director Abbas Zeffar has found in Morocco and precisely in Essaouira a prized natural setting, perfect for “Tiger Zinda Hai” whose actors sharing the bill are Salman Khan & Katrina Kaif.
As a continuation of the record-breaking blockbuster “Ek Tha Tiger”, the film “Tiger Zinda Hai” continues the story of the two super agents Tiger & Zoya eight years later.
Based on real events, the blockbuster Tiger Zinda Hai is an all out espionage action thriller and entertainer with gritty action, music and thrill that follows a daring rescue mission in Iraq.
Indian intelligence (RAW) tracks down agent Tiger [8 years after he fled with former Pakistani intelligence (ISI) agent Zoya], after a group of Indian & Pakistani nurses were taken hostage in Iraq by the militant Abu Usman.
Tiger & Zoya join forces and lead a team of RAW & ISI agents to covertly penetrate the hospital where the nurses are held and help them to safety, as an American airstrike was underway to blow up the hospital.
“HANNA”, a thriller movie directed by Joe Wright, part of which has been shot in Essaouira,
Cate Blanchett is playing alongside Saoirse Ronan & Eric Bana.
Hanna (Ronan) is a teenage girl who grew up in the woods of Finland with her father (Bana), a former CIA agent, who raised her to be the perfect assassin.
She will be trained and sent by the latter, to kill a member of the government, Hanna travels across Europe bypassing agents launched to find her by a ruthless intelligence operative, Marissa Wiegler (Blanchett) who has secrets of her own.
Hanna then decides to free herself from this heavy past, with great difficulty.
The shooting with Cate Blanchett began in March 2010 in Berlin, Germany, part of the movie was shot around Essaouira.
The director, Seung-wan Ryu picked out the costal city of Essaouira to shoot his film as the city provides the perfect urban setting for authenticity, as the city looks really like Mogadishu in its buildings and streets.
Explore and experience the most extraordinary shooting locations of movies and TV Shows that were filmed in Essaouira, starting from the Skala on an adventure that will excite the movie buff in you.
Set your compass for fun and get a taste of the #Essaouira’s most famous shooting locations by taking a 120-minutes movie set tour.
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