‘Morocco, Morocco’ Screening With Jackie Spinner

A short documentary that unravels the mystery of how the small town of Morocco, Indiana, got its name, Morocco, Morocco traces the story of an 1851 traveler’s red leather boots—featured prominently on the town’s welcome sign—back to the kingdom of Morocco.

Directed by Chicago journalist Jackie Spinner, the film explores a 171-year-old relationship, if only by name, between a farming community in Indiana and the country on the coast of North Africa.

Spinner, a former Washington Post correspondent, spent two years visiting Morocco, Indiana, to find out how the town got its name and what it’s like to live there. The film crew then traveled to the North African country to search for a bootmaker whose traditional leather-making practices would have been similar to those in the mid-1850s.

After a screening at American University's Doyle-Forman Theater, Washington Post Contributing Editor and Pulitzer Prize winner David E. Hoffman will moderate a Q&A with Spinner.

In addition to the Pulitzer Center, Spinner also received funding from Columbia College Chicago.