Fez — Rabat will host the second edition of the International Festival of Archaeological and Heritage Film, known as FIFAP, from June 9 to 13.

The event is organized by the Center for Studies and Research on the Archaeological and Anthropological Heritage of the Middle Atlas. It is held in collaboration with the Amiens Archaeology Film Festival, with support from the Ministry of Youth, Culture and Communication.

This year’s edition will take place under the theme “People, Cultures, Territories.” The program will include 17 feature-length films and five short films. Sixteen of them will compete in the official selection. 

Films across time and continents

Screenings will take place at the Auditorium of the National Higher Institute of Music and Choreographic Arts and at Cinéma Renaissance.

The films will trace human cultural development from prehistory to the medieval period. The program is built for specialists, students, and the wider public. Its goal is simple: make archaeology easier to understand through cinema.

The opening film will be “America: The New History of the First Humans.” The documentary explores the arrival of humans on the American continent nearly 32,000 years ago.

The film is produced by Bellota Films, a company founded in 2009 by Hind Saïh, who was born and raised in Morocco. Bellota Films also produced “Homo Sapiens: The New Origins,” which opened the first FIFAP edition in 2025.

Morocco’s archaeology gets a wider stage

The festival will also highlight Morocco’s growing place in global archaeology. One planned future screening, “The Great History of Humanity’s First Jewelry,” will focus on excavations at Bizmoune Cave in Morocco. The site revealed shell beads dated to around 142,000 years ago.

That discovery placed Morocco at the center of major debates on symbolic behavior and early human culture. It also gave the country a stronger voice in stories about the deep history of humanity.

FIFAP will also host three public conferences led by archaeologists, architects, paleontologists, and researchers. One conference will focus on major recent archaeological discoveries in Morocco.

The festival builds on the first edition, held in Rabat from April 23 to 26, 2025. That edition marked the launch of the first major Moroccan event dedicated to archaeological and heritage film.