Safi – A screen under the stars is no longer just one thing in Morocco. It can mean a touring outdoor cinema, a rooftop art house series, or a private terrace with its own Jacuzzi.
Three operators are doing it very well now, reaching cities from the Atlantic coast to the Atlas foothills.
Cameo Cinema, the pioneer that tours the country
Cameo Cinema started the format in Casablanca in 2015, often credited as the country’s first open-air cinema chain. Each summer, the nomadic cinema sets up screens in unusual spots, gardens, rooftops, and historic sites, often in Casablanca’s Maarif and Bourgogne neighborhoods.
It tours through Casablanca, Rabat, and Marrakech, with recent seasons reaching several other cities too. Past editions have included a golf course clubhouse in Marrakech and the Casa-Anfa hippodrome in Casablanca.
Deck chairs and beanbags fill in for cinema seats, with a blanket and popcorn standard, and a film, anything from a cult classic to auteur work, playing against the night sky.
Rooftop Films Marrakech, the art house alternative
Marrakech also runs a smaller version of its own. Rooftop Films Marrakech screens independent and experimental titles, from genre cinema to art house gems, sourced from Morocco, the Arab world, and beyond.
Screenings move between the rooftops of riads, cafes, and cultural centers around the city. Seats are free to reserve, a contrast to Cameo’s ticketed seating.
It’s an offshoot of the Arab Media Lab, a Moroccan media arts collective that also runs a digital film festival and a moving-image archive. The rooftop series aims to widen access to alternative cinema, an approach it calls “social cinema.”
It aims to be “inclusive, warm, and vibrant, just like our culture and the rich colors of Morocco.” Its program changes summer to summer, worth checking before heading out.
Riad Dar Timrad, Fez’s private spin on the format
Fez has taken the idea somewhere stranger. Riad Dar Timrad, tucked into the Fez medina, turns its rooftop jacuzzi into a small private cinema on select nights, a pairing its own website bills as “Stars, Bubbles & Movies.”
It is the most intimate version of the trend so far, built for two rather than a crowd, a detail no paid ticket or free reservation can match.
Cameo Cinema’s touring model used to be the only version of this open-air concept in Morocco. Now Marrakech has its own art house spinoff, and Fez has paired the screen with a jacuzzi.
If that pattern holds, the next addition probably won’t be another touring chain. It will be one more venue finding its own reason to put a screen outside.
