By Alex Deleon

 

The Marrakech Film Festival has slowly been gathering steam ever since the its inception in 2001.  With the fifteenth edition running from Dec. 4 ~ 12 this is not just an exotic place to visit with nice mild winter weather but a major new station on the European and international festival trail.

The most obvious indication that this festival has now come of age is that fact that  no less a figure than American Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola  will preside over the jury and special guests to receive tributes include such prestige actors as Bill Murray and Willem Defoe plus will-of-wisp German-Turkish director Fatih Akin. (He is known for not showing up at festivals to which he was invited -- (such as  Munich earlier thus year).  Others on this class jury include French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet (62) helmer of the gigantic International French hit "Amélie", and Dutchman Anton Corbijn who diected George Clooney in "The American" (2010) and helmed the most unusual James Dean biopic "Life“ released earlier this year.  Clearly personalities of this ilk do not bother to attend minor festivals. 

The opening film will be Barry Levinson's latest opus "Rock the Kashbah" set in contemporary Afghanistan and starring Bill Murray and Bruce Willis.  Murray will undoubtedly be there to introduce the film.

The closure is another prestige film, CAROL, by Todd Haynes, an American lesbian love story set in the New York of the fifties and starring Cate Blanchett.  

A major new Moroccan film, "La Marche Verte" (Al Massira ~The Green March) dealing with an important incident in Moroccan political history, will have its world premiere out of competition.

Fifteen film competing for the festival grand prix - L'Étoile d'Or -- are primarily first or second works by emerging directors from as many countries; Belgium, France, Ivory Coast, Turkey, Kosovo, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Czech Republic, Spain, Argentina, Italy, South Korea, and Japan.  Many ifbthese films have islamic casts and take up Islamic migration themes in a variety of settings. 

Other prestige films to be screened are Atom Egoyan's post Holocaust thriller "Remember" which premiered  at Venice in September and "Mr. Holmes", the Sherlock Holmes in old age fantasy starring senior British  actor Ian McKellen. This popular festival film opened at Berlin in February and has been travelling the festival circuit ever since. A class lineup from stem to stern  promises that the fifteenth installment of this still young and growing festival will be the best ever.

Alex