The Bardia (2021): Background

Gwyneth Talley is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the American University in Cairo. She is a visual and cultural anthropologist who focuses on North Africa gender, sports and leisure, and human-animal relations. In 2015, she received a grant from National Geographic to begin her documentary on women tbourida riders in Morocco. In 2019, she received her PhD in anthropology from UCLA. Today, she is a National Geographic expert for Morocco, a board member of the American Institute for Maghrib studies and the Society for Visual Anthropology. Gwyneth is currently working on a book entitled “Gunpowder Women: Playing in Morocco’s Traditional Horse Sport” focusing on the ethnographic research on women horseback riders in Morocco and their continued push into the male-dominated horse arena and upon which The Bardia is based.

The Bardia has been screened at over 10 film festivals including the Cannes Short Film Festival, Mountain Film Festival, and won best short documentary at the Montreal Independent Film Festival.

The Bardia (2021) is a documentary film that follows Amal, a Moroccan woman from Kenitra. After giving birth to her second child, the leader of a Moroccan tbourida team–––a dramatic sport of horsemanship and riflery––navigates 3 years of limbo as she struggles to compete again. The producer Gwyneth Talley and main star Amal Ahamri will talk about the filming, producing and continuing story of what it is like to be a woman in the horse world in Morocco.