Held within the 14-hectare grounds of Beldi Country Club, 10 minutes from the centre of Marrakech, Atlas Workshops, the talent development programme of Marrakech International Film Festival (FIFM), takes place in ‘atelier’ and has the feel of an artists’ residence.
The mood is relaxed, yet the air is buzzing with possibilities.
The sixth edition of the Workshops features projects and films in development, production and post-production by Arab and African filmmakers from Tunisia, Palestine, Lebanon, Senegal, Egypt and Morocco. Screenings of the Atlas Film Showcase take place at the YSL Museum.
Four Moroccan projects in development are being showcased as part of a special section titled ‘Atlas Close-ups’. They include Hind Bensari’s Out Of School, her follow up to critically -acclaimed documentaries 475: Break the Silence and We Could Be Heroes. It is being produced by filmmaker Alaa Eddine Aljem, whose credits include The Unknown Saint.
What to expect
The format of the Workshops is similar to other labs such as Qumra, the industry incubator of the Doha Film Institute. It features pitching sessions, individual mentoring of each project, panels and discussions and co-production market meetings.
This year, the Atlas Workshops encompasses three guest programmes: the Ouaga Film Lab, a development and co-production laboratory, that takes place every year in Burkina Faso for filmmakers from West, Central and Great Lakes Africa; the Realness African Screenwriters Residency which supports African filmmakers in the writing and development phases of their projects; and Creative Producer Indaba (CPI) the professional development programme of the Realness Institute, run in partnership with EAVE, International Film Festival Rotterdam’s IFFR Pro, along with the Atlas Workshops, that works with 10 African and five international producers.
Mentors include French producer Jennifer Sabbah-Immagine, Tunisian editor Nadia Ben Rachid, Egyptian screewriter, director and producer Jihan El-Tahri, Moroccan filmmaker Yasmine Benkiran, Tunisian composer Amine Bouhafa and Lara Panah- Izati, a French/American writer director with Mena roots.
“We try to tailor the support to the needs of each project,” explains Abraham Zeitoun, communications manager of the Atlas Workshops. “We also have a co-production market that is huge, which is like matchmaking, speed dating for co-producing, to find co-producers for each film.”
The pitching area sees each project team present to their peers and potential future collaborators in a closed session. “I’m not afraid, I’m excited, I want my project to be out in the world, so this is a step,” said Moroccan writer-director Halima Ouardiri, ahead of her pitch. She is attending the Workshops with her first feature The Camel Driving School.
Among the panels and discussions taking place at this year’s Atlas Workshops is ‘Cinematheques as fertile spaces for living film cultural heritage’, featuring filmmaker and director of the Cinémathèque Marocain Narjiss Nejjar and a discussion with Swedish- Egyptian director Tarik Saleh on the use of alternate spaces when shooting. Saleh’s latest film Cairo Conspiracy, which world premiered in Cannes in 2022, featured a story which took place inside the Al Azhar University in Cairo yet filmed in Istanbul, due to the filmmaker’s inability to return to Egypt after his previous work.
At the end of the four days, awards will be presented to films at every stage, as well the Atlas Distribution awards. The latter provides cash support for the distributors of the selected films to assist with their theatrical release strategy in at least two countries in the Arab world and/or the African continent
The Atlas Workshops run through November 30.
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