The second edition of the Marrakech Short Film Festival (MsFF), which will take place in Morocco’s Red City between September 23 and 30, aims to promote the short film industry and support young talents by creating a micro-production program for filmmakers to produce their works.

Ramia Beladel: Marrakech Short Film Festival Aims to Support Young Talents

Rabat – The second edition of the Marrakech Short Film Festival (MsFF), which will take place in Morocco’s Red City between September 23 and 30, aims to promote the short film industry and support young talents by creating a micro-production program for filmmakers to produce their works.

In an interview with Morocco World News, the founder of the MsFF, Ramia Beladel, indicated that the festival seeks to create a platform that allows young filmmakers to create short films, as well as give them the opportunity to showcase their work in a “diverse and international selection.”

After a first edition that was marked with strict COVID-19 measures and social distancing rules, “we wanted this edition to be the starting point of the platform we aim to build for our local and regional filmmakers and also for international ones,” Beladel noted.

Supporting young talents

“The short film is the first step in the career of filmmakers,” Beladel said, noting that the organizers of the MsFF seek to be “companions in the path of short filmmakers” and prepare them for the long journey ahead.

The festival seeks to guide and mentor younger filmmakers through several support programs that the organizers will further develop throughout the upcoming editions, Beladel explained. Regarding this year’s edition, the festival is integrating several activities, such as “organizing meetings between producers and filmmakers.”

She added, “we are extremely glad to have the support of the well-known French-Morocco producer Lamia Chraibi for building the production program.” The program is created in partnership with Chaoui Production, under the direction of Chraibi.

Since the inaugural edition of the MsFF, the festival has been focusing on “local talents by organizing a competition dedicated solely to Moroccan filmmakers,” living in Morocco or elsewhere around the world, Beladel noted.

Another successful edition?

Few cultural events took place last year due to COVID-19 restrictions. As Moroccan authorities continued to urge caution to avoid a new wave of COVID infections, last year’s MsFF was held in line with social distancing measures. After going through grueling months of COVID lockdowns, many people were“ eager for cultural meetings” such as the Marrakech festival, Beladel said.

“The nature of the festival, which is the open air cinema, stimulated the audience’s tranquility as well as the intimacy of the meetings that were limited to a specific number of attendees,” she noted.

The first edition of the festival saw the organization of several “courses and meetings … as well as film screenings from all countries of the world,” she highlighted.

Beladel noted that the MsFF audience will once again have the opportunity to enjoy an open-air screening of several short films across a variety of mythical and “special places” across the city of Marrakech, including El Badi Palace, Arsat Moulay Abdessalam garden, Les Etoiles de Jamaa El Fna cultural center, Dar Cherifa, and Mbacha.

This year’s festival will offer a diversified program, including conferences and a masterclass program featuring renowned guests and experts in the cinema and filmmaking industry, including French Moroccan producer Laila Chraibi, Moroccan director Daoud Awlad El-Sayed, Croatian director Antonita Alamat Kosianovic, Egyptian producer Mohamed Taymour, and Palestinian producer May Odeh.

How it all started

Of the origin story of the Marrakech festival, Beladel told MWN: “A dress was the catalyzer behind the MsFF.” As Beladel was excited to “have a date” with the “fabulous” city of Marrakech around the “passion for cinema,” she “was very disappointed about the postponement of the international Marrakech film festival at the beginning of the pandemic.”

Beladel had bought a dress for the red carpet event of the Marrakech film festival, but the COVID-19 outbreak aborted her “date” with the Red City. Frustrated with the cancellation of the festival, Beladel decided to create her own. “I had the idea to create a film festival that is best adapted to the pandemic situation,” with an open-air setting and a small audience, she said.

Artist Thais Sala suggested the idea of establishing a short film version of the Marrakech film festival, Beladel added, saying that she found the idea to be “very appealing to the kind of festival” she wanted to “build.” She added, “Then the first edition came through after a very challenging process.”

Honoring Palestine

This year, the festival will feature participants from different countries, including Ukraine, France, Serbia, Turkey, Germany, Armenia, Italy, Poland, and Israel. Meanwhile, the jury will include Moroccan actress Asmaa El Khamlichi, Moroccan photographer Saad Tazi, and Moroccan-German visual artist Younes Atbane.

But the main highlight of this second edition of the MsFF will be the participation of Palestine as a guest country. The festival will feature a varied selection of Palestinian short films directed by May Odeh, in partnership with the Palestinian Film Institute and the Palestinian Embassy in Rabat.

“We have managed to gather a great selection of films both in the national and international selection,” Beladel noted. But she expects the audience to be “more impacted” by the Palestinian selection, which is not well-known among Moroccans.

Her hope is for this edition of the festival to serve as Moroccan cinema lovers’ “introductory card” for Palestinian cinema. During the festival, Beladel stressed, the audience will be invited into the worlds of some of the most skilled and critically “acclaimed Palestinian filmmakers from all over the world.”