Jeff Nichols, filmmakers, mentors reflect on Marrakech’s Atlas Workshops

On arrival in the idyllic setting of Marrakech’s Beldi Country Club where the Atlas Workshops were held this week as part of the Marrakech International Film Festival (FIFM), to the soundtrack of birds chirping all around, ‘patron of the ateliers’ US filmmaker Jeff Nichols, was eager to roll his sleeves up and get to work. 

“I have 12 filmmakers who have scripts in development and then eight filmmakers here who have films in post-production. I’m trying to learn their names, read their bios, [watch the] links to past work,” said the director of indie films Take Shelter, Mud and Loving. “I’ve really been trying. I just want to make my plane ticket worth it.”

As patron, Nichols’ duties in Marrakech included meeting with the filmmakers, giving tailored advice and answering one specific question from each project participating this year.

“One person has a question about a ‘true’ antagonist,” he said. “He’s asking if there should be a specific character who is the antagonist.”

Nichols found the query interesting since it was almost the same question he asked himself while making Loving. “Loving is film about an interracial couple who got married in Virginia in the 1950s and arrested because it was against the law,” he said, explaining that “every screenwriting book will tell you you need a pure antagonist — but my thought for Loving was this is a system that created these laws, the system is the antagonist.”

Nichols planned on working through the answer with Moly Kane, the Senegalese filmmaker presenting his project Here Lies. The project went on to win an Atlas Development prize, presented as the in-person portion of the Workshops closed on December 5. They are continuing online.

Over the past six editions, the Atlas Workshops have supported 132 projects and films, including 43 from Morocco.

This year, out of the 320 submissions received, the Workshops team selected 17 projects in development and 10 films in production or post-production coming from 13 Arab or African countries. These include the Atlas Close-ups projects, five Moroccan films in development and the Umm Kulthum biopic El Sett by Egyptian helmer Marwan Hamed, which was the unique title featured as an Atlas Film Showcase.

In addition to Nichols, the Workshops, also known as ‘ateliers’, also welcomed 32 experts and consultants to Marrakech to provide filmmakers with expert guidance across every aspect of their creative process. This ranged from script to screen, with sessions on screenwriting, production, cinematography, VFX, character development, acting, editing, poster design, music, distribution and audience engagement strategies.

Projects to have passed through the Workshops in past years were also screened as part of the festival’s lineup. They included the documentary The Brink Of Dreams by Egyptian filmmakers Nada Riyadh and Ayman El Amir, which premiered in Cannes this year; Moroccan director Saïd Hamich Benlarbi’s Across The Sea, also in Cannes’ Critics’ Week; Hind Meddeb’s doc Sudan, Remember Us, which world premiered in Venice; and Muhammed Hamdy’s Venice Critics’ Week selection Perfumed With Mint. The latter three titles screened in the main Competition at FIFM, open to first and second features as a MENA or world premiere.

Palestinian actress Hiam Abbass was one of this year’s mentors, helping to breathe life into screenplays. She was impressed by the participants , of which her daughter, Lina Soualem, was one, and the ambitious nature of their projects.

“Not only are they really aware about what they have written and how to cast their movies, their subjects are so courageous and so complex,” said Abbass. “Compared with a lot of other stuff we read as actors, it’s so great to know that they are not going for the simple life, the simple thing. We talked a lot about the job of an actor, the choice of actors, what makes you say yes or no, and if you say yes what kind of preparation you do.”

One of those projects is French-Senegalese filmmaker Linda Lô’s Lucky Girl for whom the Atlas Workshops were her first industry incubator.

“It’s so rich, I feel like the world is in these rooms,” she said. “I’ve met so many people, from all over Africa and Europe and overseas. I have had real conversations with them. It’s been so deep and the connections are real and it’s really fascinating.”

Georges Schoucair, veteran Lebanese producer and the founder/CEO of Abbout Productions, participated in the Atlas workshops with two projects, Cynthia Sawna’s Your Turn, 203 in development and Cyril Aris’ It’s a Sad And Beautiful World, now in the editing stage. Schoucair said that prizes handed out in Marrakech can help in securing international financing.

“It is important for us to [secure some] finance from our region [rather than] go abroad ‘naked’, without money,” he said.

French-Tunisian actor Adam Bessa, whose credits include Harka and Who Do I Belong To, was another of this year’s acting mentors at the Workshops. He praised the event for the way it is nurturing regional filmmakers.

“[The festival and Atlas Workshops] follow artists from the beginning and want to send them into a direction which is very pleasing, he said. “ “It’s not only about taking the fruit when it’s ready, but you plant the tree and take care of it.”

The Atlas Workshops took place from December 1-5 in Marrakech.

• Lina Soualem, Morad Mostafa among winners of Marrakech’s Atlas Workshop prizes