Marrakech Builds Bridges From Atlas to Oscars

The toniest screening at last year’s Marrakech Film Festival happened off-site.

The jury president arrived in Morocco with a rough cut of his latest film, which, as luck would have it, starred another juror. With the day’s screenings and deliberations behind them — and months before the finished version would make its world premiere — Luca Guadagnino welcomed Andrew Garfield to a discreet hotel showing of “After the Hunt.”

This year’s edition brings that clubby informality squarely into the spotlight. The festival’s longtime president Melita Toscan du Plantier (who is also a producer) has once again assembled a powerhouse jury, presided over by Bong Joon-ho, the Oscar-winning director of “Parasite,” with Anya Taylor-Joy, Jenna Ortega, Celine Song, Julia Ducournau, Karim Aïnouz, Hakim Belabbes and Payman Maadi. Over the course of one week, starting this weekend, they’ll be discovering 13 films by emerging Moroccan directors playing in competition.

“We’ve tried to position the festival as a bridge between leading figures of world cinema and emerging talents,” says artistic director Remi Bonhomme. “Marrakech is a gateway between Europe and Africa, which allows us to operate both internationally and regionally. At the same time, being at the end of the year places us right in the middle of the Oscar race. We want to embrace that strategic position both geographically and in terms of the calendar.”

This year’s program features many International Feature Oscar contenders – among them “Palestine 36,” “Calle Malaga,” “The President’s Cake,” “A Poet” and “No Other Choice” – alongside gala screenings of “Frankenstein” and “Hamnet,” and conversations with Jafar Panahi, Kleber Mendonça Filho, Jodie Foster, and AMPAS CEO Bill Kramer, making its awards-season footprint unmistakable.

For Bonhomme, however, this new focus simply foregrounds what was already there.

“Guests want to be here,” he explains. “They value the chance to meet each other in a relaxed setting. Unlike Cannes or Venice, where everyone bumps into each other without real time to connect, Marrakech allows for genuine exchanges. And as the Academy has opened significantly to diversity, many Arab and African filmmakers and producers we invite are now Academy members as well.”

But Marrakech is more than a picturesque version of an FYC screening, swapping the Hollywood Hills for the Atlas Mountains. Bonhomme also wants to leverage that intimacy to integrate emerging filmmakers into the global circuit.

“I wanted the festival to be a place where international figures genuinely engage with the region,” he says. “Because these conversations have never been more important.”

He points to Andrew Garfield, who continued promoting last year’s top winner, Scandar Copti’s “Happy Holidays,” long after the festival wrapped. He highlights 2022 juror Vanessa Kirby, who was so moved by best-director winner “Thunder,” helmed by Carmen Jaquier, that she signed on as an executive producer, helped guide the film to Switzerland’s official Oscar submission, and remained involved on the filmmaker’s next feature.

And he speaks with particular pride of 2023 jury president Jessica Chastain.

“After the closing ceremony, Chastain and her producing partner met with all the filmmakers in competition and committed to following their projects,” Bonhomme says. “She even told me she thought the lineup was stronger than the competition she judged at Cannes — which, I admit, I was very happy to hear.”

Bonhomme sees the trend continuing with incoming jury president Bong Joon-ho, who awarded the Golden Lion at Venice to “Happening” and then cast its lead, Anamaria Vartolomei, in his very next project.

Four of the competing titles this year were developed through the festival’s Atlas Workshops incubator, though Bonhomme stresses that participation in the program does not guarantee selection. But he does take particular satisfaction in following projects from their earliest stages to premiere, and then further still.

Drawing on that holistic view — and his previous stint running Cannes’ Critics’ Week sidebar — Bonhomme has strategically positioned Marrakech in the wider festival circuit. To wit: the fact that Copti’s “Happy Holidays” and Asmae El Moudir’s “The Mother of All Lies” both claimed Marrakech’s top prize after earlier recognition from Venice’s Horizons and Cannes’ Un Certain Regard is no coincidence.

“The market is tough for first and second films,” he explains. “Even if you play in a sidebar at San Sebastián, Locarno, or Venice, it’s hard to get the exposure a first film needs. Sales agents increasingly target two or three key festivals to launch a film, rather than relying on just one. We’ve been shaping Marrakech to be one of those essential stops, positioning films for complementary exposure.”

The Atlas ecosystem — now encompassing development, marketing, distribution, and press initiatives under the Atlas Programs banner — has been central to that strategy. This year, the festival introduces the Atlas Distribution Meetings, bringing together 60 distribution professionals from the Arab world, Africa, and Europe.

While not a traditional market, this influx of buyers has had a knock-on effect on programming, helping Marrakech secure world premieres like Marwan Hamed’s “El Set,” Meryem Benm’Barek’s “Behind the Palm Trees,” and the international debut of the Australian feature “First Light.”

Looking ahead, Bonhomme aims to expand the industry side further, inviting megawatt stars, sales and distribution vets, awards hopefuls and emerging auteurs to connect at the same picturesque setting — and in doing so, creating “another tool within the festival ecosystem that can have a real international impact.”

“We’re at a moment when it’s important for international and regional films to be discovered not just in Europe but on the African continent,” he says. “Arab and African filmmakers still rely heavily on European financing and festivals, yet their home audiences are growing. Marrakech can give these films a platform to launch internationally while remaining rooted in their region. That’s my goal going forward.”