Luca Guadagnino has stepped in to replace Thomas Vinterberg as jury president for this year’s Marrakech International Film Festival, which runs from November 29 to December 7.
Festival organisers said in a statement that Danish filmmaker Vinterberg “had to excuse himself for family reasons.”
Guadagnino will be joined on the jury by fellow filmmakers Ali Abbasi, Zoya Akhtar and Santiago Mitre, and actors Patricia Arquette, Virginie Efira, Jacob Elordi, Andrew Garfield and Nadia Kounda.
The Italian filmmaker, whose features Challengers and Queer are competing in this year’s awards season, said he first came to Marrakech two decades ago as a guest of Italian actress Valentina Cervi, who was serving on the festival’s short film competition jury, even though his Algerian mother had grown up in the city.
The director said: “The first time I landed in the great city of Marrakech it was because of this amazing festival and since then, for me the city and cinema are indissolubly connected… My Arab DNA is really, really engraved in the amazing powers of the festival of Marrakech.”
Fourteen features from first- and second-time filmmakers will compete for the festival’s top prize, the Étoile d’Or, which the jury will award at the closing ceremony on December 7.
Last year’s top prize went to Asmae El Moudir’s The Mother Of All Lies, the first Moroccan film ever to win the award.
See the complete line-up here.
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