The marrakech international film festival announces the 27 projects and films selected for the 7th edition of the atlas workshops and names us director jeff nichols as this year’s patron

Rabat, October 25th, 2024. The 7th edition of the Atlas Workshops will take place in Marrakech from December 1st through 5th, 2024. Celebrated US filmmaker Jeff Nichols (Take Shelter, The Bikeriders) takes on the role of patron of this new cohortof filmmakers from Morocco, the Arab world, and Africa.

Jeff Nichols: patron of the Atlas Workshops

A key figure of contemporary cinema, recognized as heir to the greatest of US filmmakers, Jeff Nichols has enjoyed a meteoric rise since his directorial debut in 2007. Arriving on the world stage with Take Shelter, which took the Grand Prix in La Semaine de la Critique at the Festival de Cannes, over the course of six films, spanning a variety of genres.

During this year's Atlas Workshops, Nichols will take part in a number of sessions with selected projects in development and post-production. This year's cohort of filmmakers will be known as the Class of Jeff Nichols.

“I’m thrilled to visit this incredible festival for the first time. Accepting the position as Patron to this year’s Atlas Workshops is an honor, and I consider myself lucky to have the opportunity to share in the journey these filmmakers are on. Interacting with other filmmakers is always an inspiration to me, and I hope my involvement helps them on their path to getting their films out into the world,” said Nichols.

Developing support programs

The Marrakech International Film Festival's industry platform, renowned for the consistent quality of its initiatives, expands its support programs this year, placing particular emphasis on the artistic vitality of the new generation of Moroccan, Arab, and African filmmakers.

This year, the platform includes modules that take place prior to the festival, and the Atlas Workshops will be held over five days, increasing from the four-day sessions of previous editions. This expansion enables the exploration of a wider variety of artistic and professional fields.

Launched last year, the Atlas Distribution Awards, a distribution support scheme for Morocco and the Arab and African nations, this year also features a day of exchanges and discussions seeking to optimize the work of distributors in the region.

With the aim of supporting the development of the Moroccan film industry ecosystem, this year the festival develops the Atlas Station program further with the aim of honing the skills of young.

Moroccan directors and producers who wish to connect with the international industry in order to boost the development of their projects. This year, Atlas Station welcomes its first cohort of 10 Moroccan talents, who will benefit from a bespoke program tailored for them during the Atlas Workshops. The initiative includes group work sessions, one-on-one consultations, and cross-fertilization with other Atlas Workshops programming.

A culturally diverse selection

This year, the Atlas Workshops presents 17 projects in development and 10 films in production or postproduction from 13 countries, selected from 320 applications received from across the African continent and the Arab world.

This year's selection features powerful, original stories that reflect the region's cultural diversity. After the international success of her documentary Bye Bye Tiberias, Lina Soualem returns to the Atlas Workshops with her first fiction film, Alicante (Algeria). Moly Kane attends with a moving narrative Ici repose (Senegal), and Murad Abu Eisheh brings a lyrical adaptation of The Orange Grove (Jordan).

Morocco is represented by Djanis Bouzyani, who, after being discovered as an actor, has moved on to directing and comes to Marrakech with the moving documentary And Still I Rise, and Yassine Iguenfer's who brings his vibrant tale The Nours.

This year's edition features new talents with bold visions, among them Mouloud Ouyahia, whose short film was presented in the Directors’ Fortnight at the Festival de Cannes, and who attends the Atlas Workshops with The Source (Algeria), and multidisciplinary director Nuno Miranda, who explores the beautiful meeting of two soulmates amid mourning and exile in Flowers of the Dead (Cabo Verde). The Atlas Workshops also welcomes the promising voices of Walid Messsnaoui, with his captivating manhunt The Last Beast of Atlas (Morocco), and Fabien Dao's modern western, Princesse Téné (Burkina Faso).

Further enriching the selection for this 7th edition are The Shelter (Morocco), the new project by Talal Selhami, who previously won acclaim for his first two feature films, and the first images of Babatunde Apalowo's current project, In the Shadows of Good Fortune (Nigeria), coming on the heels of the presentation of his previous film at the Berlin International Film Festival.

The Atlas Workshops will unveil the first images of two films that participated in previous editions while in development: Zamo Mkhwanazi’s Laundry (South Africa) and Meryem Benm'Barek’s Behind the Palm Trees (Morocco), which were selected for the platform in 2018 and 2022 respectively.

This year’s edition also features exclusive looks at images from Cherien Dabis’s All That's Left of You (Palestine), the director’s return to feature films after a notable stint directing for television series; Marwan Hamed’s El Sett (Egypt), his eagerly awaited biopic of legendary diva Umm Kulthum; and Tarzan & Arab Nasser’s Once Upon a Time in Gaza (Palestine).