For My Best Family
For My Best Family was a 2024 art exhibition by Meriem Bennani and Orian Barki, funded by the Milan host facility Fondazione Prada. Developed over a two-year period, it featured two components on different levels of the Prada, a mechanical installation named Sole Crushing and a computer-animated film entitled For Aicha. The latter revisited the universe of Bennani and Barki's 2020 web series 2 Lizards, and was the first animated feature produced in Morocco.
The exhibition ran at the Prada premises between 31 October 2024 and 24 February 2025, and was well-received by Italian outlets. Both portions of Family resurfaced as separate attractions in late 2025: an extended version of Aicha which received festival release as the retitled Bouchra, and a standalone edition of Sole Crushing that debuted in Paris.
Overview
For My Best Family was held across two levels of Milan's Fondazione Prada during its run. The ground floor was occupied by a mechanical installation named Sole Crushing, while the upstairs Cinema Godard section on the first floor showed a computer-animated film entitled For Aicha.Sole Crushing comprised no fewer than 190 flip-flops laid out across six platforms, which "slap against panels, creating a riotous, polyphonic composition and choreography....Most of them face a small, central podium bearing a single pair of flip-flops whose slapping movements are occasionally isolated, creating a sense of conversation between an individual and a crowd." For Aicha—the 73-minute progenitor of what became Bouchra—told the story of a 35-year-old queer Moroccan canid filmmaker coming to terms with her sexuality and career through a series of phone calls to her Casablanca mother. Sole Crushing sound played during Aicha, particularly during the plot's "points of tension": "As the two main characters reach their resolution, so does the composition of the footwear when they finish their symphony."
Development
With funding from the Fondazione Prada, Meriem Bennani worked on For My Best Family over a two-year period, with different collaborators on each portion: Sole Crushing featured Reba Senhaji, while For Aicha reunited her with creative partner Orian Barki. All three were natives of the Middle East and North Africa region: Bennani and Runner from Morocco, and Barki from Tel Aviv, Israel. In response to Prada's development deal, Bennani insisted that the exhibition include a feature film.Family was Bennani's "first solo exhibit in an Italian institution." In Prada's promotion, she discussed the two components thus:
For Aicha was the first animated feature produced in Morocco, and was set in the same universe as 2 Lizards. Nearly 20 crew members in New York City animated the film on the Blender platform under a budget and 1-year deadline; motion capture was also used. Online videos of fans at Casablanca football matches served as Bennani's inspiration for Sole Crushing.
Another 2 Lizards crew member, Flavien Berger, worked on the music in Aicha. Influenced by Berber customs and based on his initial perception of the characters, Berger's score would eventually bring Who Framed Roger Rabbit to mind for Bennani and Barki. Runner composed the cues heard in Aicha Casablanca radio broadcasts; he and Bennani also wrote the 45-minute backing track for Sole Crushing.
Themes
The two components of Family "explore the centrality of human relationships, whether familial or collective," and "seek to understand the dynamics of being connected, like a family," while also recalling the artistic traits of early 20th-century animation. Both use breathing as a metaphorical motif: Sole Crushing uses pneumatic pumps, while Aicha protagonist Bouchra takes shots of Ventolin to cope with her asthma symptoms. A writer for Italy's designboom noted the mutual relationships present in both components: Bouchra depends on Aicha, while the shoes depend on the pneumatic system that operates them.The exhibition's title is referenced in one of the film's last lines, spoken by Bouchra's aunt: "I am really good because I am here with my best family." Bennani admitted that this sentence "is grammatically incorrect" in English, but she and the Aicha team left it in the dialogue since it is open to interpretations by the viewer.