Marrakech builds bridge from Atlas to Oscar

The most tense screening at last year’s Marrakech Film Festival took place outside the venue.

The jury foreman arrived in Morocco with a rough cut of his latest film, but as luck would have it, another juror would star in the film. After the day’s screenings and deliberations, and months before the final film’s world premiere, Luca Guadagnino welcomed Andrew Garfield to a low-key screening of After the Hunt at a hotel.

This year’s edition puts the spotlight squarely on its clubby, informal atmosphere. The festival’s longtime president Melita Toscan du Plantier (who is also a producer) once again assembled an influential jury, chaired by Oscar-winning director Bong Joon-ho of “Parasite,” and featuring Anya Taylor-Joy, Jenna Ortega, Céline Song, Julia Ducournau, Karim Ainus, Hakim Belavés and Peyman Mahdi. Starting this weekend, 13 competition films by up-and-coming Moroccan directors will be screened over the course of a week.

“We have strived to position the festival as a bridge between the leading figures of world cinema and emerging talent,” said artistic director Rémi Bonhomme. “Marrakech is the 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 puts us in the middle of the Oscar race. We want to protect its strategic position, both geographically and in terms of the calendar.”

This year’s program will leave its mark on awards season, including a number of international feature Oscar nominees, including “Palestine 36,” “Málaga Street,” “The President’s Cake,” “The Poet,” and “No Other Choice,” as well as gala screenings of “Frankenstein” and “Hamnet,” and conversations with Jafar Panahi, Kleber Mendonça Filho, Jodie Foster and AMPAS CEO Bill Kramer. Unmistakable.

But for Bonhomme, this new focus simply foregrounds what was already there.

“Guests want to be here,” he explains. “They value the opportunity to meet each other in a relaxed atmosphere. Unlike Cannes or Venice, where everyone bumps into each other without connecting in real time, real interaction is possible in Marrakech. Also, as the Academy has opened up significantly to diversity, many of the Arab and African filmmakers and producers we invite are also now Academy members.”

But Marrakech is more than just the picturesque version of the FYC screening, with the Atlas Mountains replacing the Hollywood hills. Bonhomme also hopes to leverage that intimacy to integrate emerging filmmakers into the global circuit.

“We wanted this festival to be a place where international celebrities really engage with the region,” he says. “Because these conversations are more important than ever.”

He pointed to Andrew Garfield, who continued to promote last year’s grand prize winner, Skandar Copti’s “Happy Holidays,” long after the festival ended. He highlights 2022 judge Vanessa Kirby. She was so impressed with Carmen Jaquier’s Best Director-winning “Thunder” that she signed on as executive producer, leading the film to Switzerland’s official Oscar submission, and continued to work on the director’s next film.

And he speaks with particular pride about 2023 jury foreman Jessica Chastain.

“After the closing ceremony, Chastain and his producing partners met with all of the filmmakers in the competition and were committed to following up on their projects,” Bonhomme says. “She even told me that this line-up was stronger than the competition she judged in Cannes. I’ll admit, I was very happy to hear that.”

Bonhomme believes this trend will continue, with incoming jury president Bong Joon-ho winning the Venice Golden Lion for “The Happening” and casting Annamaria Bartolomei in the lead role in his next film.

Four of this year’s competing titles were developed through the festival’s Atlas Workshop incubator, but Bonhomme stresses that participation in the program does not guarantee selection. But he’s especially happy to follow the project from its early stages to its premiere and even further.

Using that holistic perspective and his previous stint in charge of the Cannes Critics’ Week sidebar, Bonhomme strategically positioned Marrakech within the broader festival circuit. So it’s no coincidence that Copti’s Happy Holidays and Asmae El Moudir’s The Mother of All Lies received early recognition from Horizons in Venice and Un Certain Regard at Cannes, and both won the top prize in Marrakech.

“The market is tough for first and second movies,” he explains. “It’s hard to get the exposure you need for your first film, even if you screen in sidebars in San Sebastian, Locarno and Venice. Increasingly, distributors are targeting two or three major festivals when releasing a film, rather than relying on just one. We’re shaping Marrakech to be one of those key destinations and positioning the film for complementary exposure.”

The Atlas ecosystem, which now encompasses development, marketing, distribution and coverage efforts under the Atlas Programs banner, is central to its strategy. This year’s festival will introduce the Atlas Distribution Meeting, which will bring together 60 distribution professionals from the Arab world, Africa and Europe.

Although not a traditional market, this influx of buyers has had a knock-on effect on programming, helping Marrakech secure world premieres such as Marwan Hamed’s El Set, Meriem Benmbarek’s Behind the Palm Trees, and the world premiere of the Australian feature film First Light.

Looking to the future, Bonhomme aims to further expand its industry footprint, bringing megawatt stars, sales and distribution veterans, award nominees, and emerging writers to the same beautiful stage, thereby creating “another tool within the festival ecosystem that can make a real international impact.”

“We are at a critical moment in time for international and regional films to be discovered not only in Europe but also on the African continent,” he says. “Arab and African filmmakers are still heavily reliant on European funding and film festivals, but their home-grown audiences are growing. Marrakech can provide these films with a platform to be released internationally while remaining local. That is my goal going forward.”