SCHOOL OF HOPE Premieres In Hot Docs Festival, April 29- May 9

After spending three years with the Moroccan Oulad Boukais tribe, director Mohamed El Aboudi brings optimism to a locked-down world hungry for human connections. A poetic ode to the human spirit, SCHOOL OF HOPE has its international premiere in Hot Docs' International Spectrum competition (April 29 - May 9).

SCHOOL OF HOPE is produced by Finland's Illume (THE TRANS SYRIAN EXPRESS), France's Bellota Films (ABBAS BY ABBAS), Morocco's La Prod (URGENT) and US-based Vulcan Productions (SUMMER OF SOUL).

The Oulad Buokais tribe have lost their livestock and nomadic way of living to climate change. Unable to get government support for even water or electricity, they invest in education by building a hut for a young teacher. Their children ride donkeys and bicycles or walk for miles to attend a "school of hope" built of clay.

As director El Aboudi explains: "With this film I want to show that climate change is very unjust. People with the smallest carbon footprint, like the Oulad Boukais tribe, are the ones who suffer the most. For these people, education is a matter of life and death-there is no future with dignity without education."

Now based in Finland, Mohamed El Aboudi was born in Morocco and earned his Master of Film and Television from Australia's Bond University. He currently resides in Finland, where he received an award for his documentary work from the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE in 2006. His documentary DANCE OF OUTLAWS (2012) premiered at the Locarno International Film Festival, where it received the Premio Zonta Club Locarno award. His other works include FIGHT OF FATE (2009) and NETIZEN MO (2015), and more than 30 short TV documentaries, some of which have been nominated for the Prix Europa.

Website: http://bit.ly/SOHwebsite

Hot Doc Tickets: http://bit.ly/SOHTickets