Fez — Marrakech Short Film Festival (MARRAKECHsFF) has revealed the 2026 selection, making it a destination for short films in Morocco.
Running from September 25 to 30, the festival’s sixth edition received more than 400 submissions from over 90 countries across five continents.
The 30-film national and international selection spans Moroccan social realities, absurdist comedy, war, loneliness, grief, memory, identity, and surrealism.
The prizes will eventually decide a few winners. For now, the films offer better reasons for you to pay attention.
Thirteen Moroccan films, and very different versions of Morocco
The Moroccan selection begins with Ines Lehaire’s “With the Wind,” an aging florist closes his shop in pursuit of a freedom that may no longer exist, giving the slate an understated meditation on age and possibility.
Ismail Ait Lahcen’s “Fading Candle” turns the touch of a wedding scarf into something darker. The gesture awakens memories of an underage bride and a desperate attempt to escape.
Grief also drives Sanaa El Alaoui’s “Aicha,” centered on a 17-year-old girl and an emotionally distant mother. After tragedy transforms their relationship, the mother enters a mystical ceremony to confront what has been lost.
In Amine Zeriouh’s “Quo Vadis, Meryem!,” mortality enters a marriage through the visit of a dying friend. Meryem tries to close the emotional distance between herself and her husband, eventually forcing buried memories into the open.
Anass Hattam’s “65 Days” finds conflict in an everyday workplace. A café waiter reaches the end of 65 days of labor only to face an employer manipulating his salary and even disputing how long he worked.
The stage becomes the battleground in Kacem Skalli’s “Behind the Curtain’s Edge.” During an adaptation of “Hamlet,” an actor takes on Ophelia while honoring his late mother, as rivalry, desire, and resentment threaten the production.
Then comes one of the selection’s sharpest tonal changes.
Marwan Chiguer’s “Investigation” follows a cat and dog who discover a chicken leg and conclude that murder has taken place. Two conspiracy-minded pigeons join their increasingly chaotic noir investigation.
Yassine Iguenfer’s Morocco-France production “Sin Igharassen” (Two Ways) travels to the Souss region in 1975. Two men face different paths as personal choices become entangled with a larger historical moment.
Adnane Rami’s “Mesk Ellil” moves into isolation and unease. An elderly man living alone allows an unknown couple into his countryside home, where a strange routine gradually develops.
In Sonia Terrab’s “Paradise Garden,” the obstacle is bureaucratic but deeply personal. A single mother forced to relocate discovers she needs her absent son’s father to authorize his school transfer.
Aiman Benslimane’s “Hidden Ties” gives love an altogether different complication. A devoted expecting couple discovers a hidden religious kinship that makes them milk siblings, placing their relationship against questions of faith and obligation.
Hamza Atifi’s “Phone Breaker” embraces dark absurdity. Jalil, a washed-up employee seeking revenge for his mother, begins destroying telephones and launches a personal war against the telecommunications industry.
Karim Tajouaout’s “Crawling Birds” closes the national slate with an allegorical world. Humanoid birds live underground believing flight is forbidden, until one discovers his wings and returns with knowledge of the world above.
The official competition divides Moroccan contenders across the Belarj Prize for directing, Nakhil Prize for image-making, and Behja Prize for performance.
“With the Wind,” “Quo Vadis, Meryem!,” “Investigation,” and “Crawling Birds” screen outside competition.
Seventeen international films push the selection outward
The international slate opens with Giacomo Bendotti’s Italian film “The Bridge.” Gregorio joins a low-cost dental tourism trip from Italy to Slovenia, then abandons the group schedule to cross another border: one leading into his past.
Iraqi filmmaker Yasmeen Waleed’s “Where the Balloon Led Me” brings artificial intelligence into an intimate story of grief. Ali, isolated in Duhok-Kurdistan, tries using ChatGPT to encounter his dead mother in dreams before cinema offers another route toward connection.
Few premises are as immediately strange as Saudi filmmaker Faisal Buhaishi’s “Eissa’s Palms.” A widowed farmer becomes convinced a palm tree is his dead wife and decides he must marry it again, to the alarm of his village.
Kazakhstan’s Maxim Akbarov turns corporate pollution into confrontation in “The Experiment.” After a toxic industrial plant opens in a remote area, a local resident invites journalists to witness its health effects through a demonstration designed to shock them.
“Gauze,” a France-produced film by Noran Fikri Alezabi, Nicholas Arujah, Xinyue Ma, Yulin Yue, and Xiaonan Zhou, follows 14-year-old Palestinian swimming champion Zain. War and famine transform his talent from sport into survival when food aid lands in the sea.
“My Brother, My Brother,” by Saad and Abdelrahman Dnewar, explores the intertwined memories of identical twins Omar and Wesam, tracing their bond from the womb toward the death that separates them.
Spain’s “Ciao!” by Iván Melguizo Martín is more mysterious on paper. The submitted selection sheet provides no synopsis, leaving it as one of the few films arriving without its central premise disclosed.
Jun Cordon’s France-South Korea production “A Scream on the Roof” centers on Ji-Eun, a committed 23-year-old primary school teacher whose professional life is disrupted by an unexpected demand from a pupil’s mother.
Samir Syriani’s Lebanese film “What If They Bomb Here Tonight?” reduces war to one sleepless domestic decision. A couple with children nearby debates whether staying home is more dangerous than fleeing under the threat of an Israeli airstrike.
Leyla Hattabi’s UK film “Dessert Is Served” starts with a birthday dinner and lets civility collapse. Political posturing, betrayals, affairs, resentment, and private humiliations slowly destroy the friendships around Irene’s table.
“Dog Alone,” by Portugal’s Marta Reis Andrade, connects two forms of abandonment: a dog left inside its home and human loneliness surrounding widowhood and a return from London.
Cambodian filmmaker Chheangkea takes a supernatural route in “Grandma Nai Who Played Favorites.” A dead grandmother slips away from the afterlife after learning her queer grandson may become engaged to a woman.
In Giulia Grandinetti’s Italy-Albania production “Majonezë,” young Elyria lives under her strict father’s authority in a remote Albanian mountain village until anger finally overtakes obedience.
Neo Sora’s Japan-China film “A Very Straight Neck” begins with severe neck pain before slipping into fragmented memories, dreams, and a surreal struggle simply to move.
Australia’s “Trading Cards,” directed by Radheya Jang, sends an enigmatic man backward in time toward his younger self. What first appears nostalgic develops into a story about identity, childhood innocence, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Lara Izagirre Garizurieta’s Spanish short “El Regalo (The Gift)” follows three Roma women, Aurora, Dessi, and Samara, into central Bilbao on a seemingly simple mission: finding a birthday present for their niece Sarai.
Finally, Kun Sun’s Chinese film “The Wind in Ash” follows a photography student returning home for her father’s funeral. Gender identity, family gossip, childhood memories, and an estranged mother converge around an unexpected moment of connection.
Thirteen of these titles form the international competition, while “Eissa’s Palms,” “Gauze,” “Grandma Nai Who Played Favorites,” and “El Regalo” comprise the four-country out-of-competition component indicated by the festival’s program. The international awards recognize directing, cinematography, and a “Coup de Cœur.”
Prizes matter, but the shortlist comes first
Beyond the national and international competitions, MARRAKECHsFF is introducing “Bridges of Reality,” a documentary program dedicated to filmmakers from Africa and its diaspora. It will award two Excellence Awards and a Jury Prize. Malta also joins the sixth edition as Country of Honour with nine short films.
Screenings and activities will unfold across Marrakech at locations including El Badi Palace, Cyber Park, Meydene, The Folk, the World Storytelling Cafe, and the French Institute of Marrakech.
The juries will eventually decide which films leave Marrakech with prizes. Audiences, meanwhile, have 30 very different reasons to start choosing what they want to see.
