Moroccan filmmaker Asmae El Moudir has made historical past on the twentieth version of Morocco’s Marrakech Movie Pageant as the primary native director to win its high prize together with her hybrid documentary The Mom Of All Lies.
Impressed by the bread riots in El Moudir’s house metropolis of Casablanca in 1981, the work makes use of a duplicate of the neighborhood the place it occurred and collectible figurines to discover the lasting trauma of the occasion.
The movie world premiered at Cannes this yr, the place it shared the Golden Eye prize for the Greatest Documentary with Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania’s 4 Daughters.
Morocco has since submitted the work as its candidate for Greatest Worldwide Movie on the 96th Academy Awards.
In different Marrakech awards, theJury Prize was shared by Moroccan director Kamal Lazraq’s kidnapping thriller Hounds and French-Palestinian-Algerian filmmaker Lina Soualem’s Bye Bye Tiberius, revisiting the story of her actress mom Hiam Abbass displaced household.
In one other first, all three profitable movies participated within the pageant’s Atlas Workshops, nurturing tasks and expertise from the Arab world and Africa.
In different awards, Greatest Director went to French-Senegalese director Ramata-Toulaye Sy for her movie Banel & Adama, which additionally world premiered in Cannes.
Asja Zara Lagumdzija received Greatest Actress for Bosnian drama Tour by Una Gunjak and Doga Karakas received Greatest Actor for Turkish movie Dormitory by Nehir Tuna.
This yr’s jury was presided over by Jessica Chastain with different members spanning Franco-Iranian actor Zar Amir; French actor Camille Cottin; Australian actor and director Joel Edgerton; British director Joanna Hogg; US director Dee Rees; Egyptian-born Swedish director Tarek Saleh; Swedish actor Alexander Skarsgård; and Franco-Moroccan author Leïla Slimani.
The pageant’s celebratory twentieth editions got here collectively towards the tough backdrop of the earthquake within the close by Atlas Mountains in September, the geopolitical tensions of the Israel-Hamas Battle and the tail-end of the Hollywood actors’ strike. Greater than 21,000 folks registered to attend the pageant this yr, entrance to which is freed from cost, whereas one other 8,000 schoolchildren and youngsters from the area participated within the screenings.
