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Mohamed Koukam, commentary writer for more than 140 episodes of the celebrated Amouddou series, dies
Morocco’s cultural and media community lost Mohamed Koukam on Friday. He wrote the narration for more than 140 episodes of the documentary programme Amouddou and was known for his interest in Moroccan heritage and history, as well as his love of adventure and discovery.
Koukam was one of the Moroccan writers whose name became associated with several documentary programmes. He worked on translation and narration scripts for a number of audiovisual production companies.
He was particularly closely linked to Hassan Boufous’s adventure and discovery programme Amouddou. Speaking by telephone to Al3omk, Boufous paid tribute to him: “Within the Amouddou team, we regarded Koukam as a spiritual father. I worked with him from the first episode in 2001. I knew him as a cultured, calm and patient man who listened more than he spoke. We shared the series’ moments of success with him, and they will remain in our memory. Parting with him is difficult, but kidney failure took him from us.”
Boufous added: “He was renowned for writing narration in a way that kept viewers absorbed in the programmes we made. Nothing was left to chance. He chose precise expressions to describe the images shown to the audience. Our relationship went far beyond work and he became a member of our family. My deepest condolences go to his two sons.”
Mohamed Koukam was born on 16 March 1958. He began his education at Hay Hassani School in Agadir—now Mohamed Cheikh Saadi School—then attended Crown Prince High School and Youssef Ben Tachfine High School in the same city. He later studied philosophy at the Faculty of Letters and Humanities in Rabat.
He previously worked for a bank before entering the audiovisual field around 2000. He translated many films into and from Arabic and specialised in writing the narration for Taouada, an Amazigh-language documentary series of around ten episodes produced by Fawzi Vision. At the same time, he wrote the narration for the documentary series Amouddou.
Together with the Amouddou team, Koukam received several awards. In 2012, the programme won first prize in the “Know Your Country” category of the annual programme competitions organised in Tunis by the Arab States Broadcasting Union.
In 2011, it received a special mention from the jury of the seventh International Festival of Animal and Environmental Film in Rabat.
In December 2007, the team won the gold award for best documentary at the Arab Media Festival in Cairo for “Hadith Al Soura.” It also received best programme awards at the Noujoum Biladi Festival in 2003 and 2006, as well as a commendation at the Al Jazeera Documentary Film Festival.