Fez — Tetouan is preparing to welcome filmmakers from across the Mediterranean as its long-running film festival will kick off on October 3.
The 31st edition of the Tetouan Mediterranean Film Festival will run through October 10, with a program combining its official competition, special screenings, professional meetings, workshops, conferences, and tributes.
This year carries added significance for the city, which shares the title of Mediterranean Capital of Culture and Dialogue 2026 with Matera in Italy.
Mónica López leads the jury
Spanish actress Mónica López will preside over the jury evaluating the 10 films in the official feature-length fiction and documentary competition.
López has worked across cinema, television, and theater for more than three decades, including projects directed by Cesc Gay and Rodrigo Sorogoyen. She won an Ondas Award in 2024 for her performance in the series “Rapa.”
French producer Virginie Matéo will join her, in addition to Italian filmmaker and editor Rossella Inglese, Moroccan director Abdelhaï Laraki, and Cypriot director and producer Michael Hapeshis.
A separate Mustapha Mesnaoui Critics’ Jury will bring together Italian critic Alessandra De Luca, Moroccan film critic Saïd Mezouari, and Spanish journalist María Iglesias Real.
The festival’s broader program includes films from Morocco, Spain, France, Italy, Portugal, Türkiye, Egypt, Palestine, Tunisia, Switzerland, and other countries around the Mediterranean and beyond.
Screenings will take place across venues including Cinema Avenida, the Spanish Cinema Hall, and the French Institute space.
Tributes and Moroccan cinema
The festival will also use its 31st edition to revisit the careers of several Mediterranean cinema figures.
Among those highlighted in the festival material are Moroccan filmmaker Hicham Lasri, Cypriot actress Popi Avraam, and Italian director Peter Marcias.
Lasri’s retrospective includes screenings of “The End,” “C’est eux les chiens,” “Starve Your Dog,” “Headbang Lullaby,” “Jahilya,” and “Moroccan Badass Girl.”
His body of work has become known for a confrontational visual language and stories examining Moroccan society through political satire, fragmentation, violence, and dark humor.
The program includes “With Moroccan Eyes,” directed by Karim Debbagh, and “Mira,” by Moroccan filmmaker Nour-Eddine Lakhmari.
Workshops beyond the screenings
The festival is putting professional development alongside its public film program.
Its “Talents en courts” training initiative will run from October 6 to 8 at the French Cultural Center of Tetouan.
Egyptian screenwriter and actor Nasser Abdel-Rahmane will lead training sessions for participants. Abdel-Rahmane is known for socially engaged screenwriting and collaborations within Egyptian cinema, with credits including “Chaos,” “Genainat el-Asmak,” and “Dokkan Shehata.”
Participants will work through several days of training, practical exercises, and project development before receiving participation certificates.
The wider cultural program also includes discussions on Mediterranean audiovisual cooperation, new economic models for cinema, meetings with filmmakers, and a session examining Hollywood cinema from the 1920s to the 1960s.
The festival was founded in the 1980s through Ttouan’s Association of Friends of Cinema and has spent decades creating a meeting point between filmmakers and audiences from both shores of the Mediterranean.
