MARRAKECH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES JURY FOR ITS 23RD EDITION
The 23rd edition of the Marrakech International Film Festival takes place from November 20th to 28th, 2026
Chaired by Marion Cotillard, the jury awards the Étoile d’Or to one of the fourteen films in the Official Competition.
One Academy Award-winning actor, eight personalities of world cinema, and fourteen films vying for the Étoile d’Or. The Marrakech International Film Festival has announced the jury for its 23rd edition, chaired by Marion Cotillard. The jury brings together actors and filmmakers who explore a variety of artistic worlds in their remarkable careers and who, each in their own way, contribute to renewing the forms and narratives of contemporary cinema.
In Marrakech, the spotlight is on a generation of filmmakers taking their early steps on the international stage. Entirely dedicated to first and second feature films, since its inception the Official Competition has embodied one of the Festival’s key goals: to discover new voices, give them international visibility, and help them connect with audiences.
Previously announced as the president of the jury, Marion Cotillard, who won the Oscar for Best Actress for her performance in La Vie en Rose, oversees the deliberations that will culminate in the awarding of the Étoile d’Or.
Alongside her are actors whose careers have taken unexpected turns, leading them to appear in arthouse cinema, mainstream hits, and international productions. Danish actor Claes Bang gained international recognition for his turn in Ruben Östlund’s The Square, which won the Palme d’Or at the Festival de Cannes. Luxembourg’s Vicky Krieps made her mark on the international scene opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread before receiving an award at Cannes for her performance in Corsage. Franco-British actor Emma Mackey, who was discovered in the series Sex Education and went on to star in Death on the Nile and Barbie, will soon be seen in Greta Gerwig’s Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew. France’s Gilles Lellouche made a name for himself as an actor in Little White Lies, The Stronghold, and All Your Faces, before moving behind the camera with Sink or Swim and Beating Hearts—both of which were presented at the Festival de Cannes.
The jury also includes three filmmakers whose films have crossed borders while retaining their unique character. Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania, whose Four Daughters and The Voice of Hind Rajab were both nominated for Oscars, has turned the boundary between documentary and fiction cinema into a realm of creativity. British filmmaker Andrew Haigh, director of 45 and All of Us Strangers, explores romantic intimacy and the weight of the past with rare sensitivity.
Franco-Senegalese filmmaker Ramata-Toulaye Sy, whose debut feature Banel & Adama tells a tale of the power of unconditional love with fairy-tale overtones, made a remarkable debut on the international scene when the film was selected for the Official Competition at Cannes.
Moroccan director and producer Saïd Hamich Benlarbi, meanwhile, is familiar with the Marrakech competition from the inside: in 2024, he presented his second feature film, Across the Sea, in the Festival. He returns this year as a juror.
From France to Morocco, from Denmark to Tunisia, from the United Kingdom to Senegal via Luxembourg, this jury paints a true picture of contemporary cinema. Behind the diversity of the jurors’ origins lie as many ways of making films and of immersing ourselves in them. It is from this exchange of experiences and sensibilities that the jury’s deliberations will emerge as they work to arrive at the heralding of a new voice in world cinema.
The jury will announce the winners on Saturday, November 28th, during the Festival’s closing ceremony.
THE JURY
Marion Cotillard (France)
Academy Award winner Marion Cotillard is internationally renowned for her unbridled commitment to her art. Currently starring in Guillaume Canet’s Karma, she will next be seen in Bertrand Mandico’s Roma Elastica and Nicole Garcia’s Milo. After wrapping up filming on Emmanuelle Bercot’s The Enraged, she was announced to star in Yuval Adler’s Job and Nicholas Ashe Bateman’s The Turning Door. In 2008, Cotillard became the second French female actor ever to win an Academy Award, and the first to win an acting Oscar for a performance in the French language, for her turn in Olivier Dahan’s La Vie en Rose. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne's Two Days, One Night. Cotillard's previous credits display a breadth of work from independent auteur cinema to franchise films including The Ice Tower, The Morning Show, Annette, The Immigrant, The Dark Knight Rises, Inception, Midnight in Paris, Nine, Public Enemies, Big Fish, and Taxi, among others. Born in Paris, Cotillard studied drama at the Conservatoire d'Art Dramatique and has been named a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for her contribution to the enrichment of French culture.
Claes Bang (Denmark)
A familiar face on stage and screen in northern Europe, Claes Bang had his breakthrough as an international star as the lead in Ruben Östlund’s Academy Award-nominated feature The Square, which won the Palme d’Or at the Festival de Cannes in 2017. The film won six European Film Awards, including Best Actor for Bang, and went on to be nominated for the Academy Award and the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film.
Bang has since starred in films such as William Tell, The Northman, Bonjour Tristesse, and The Great Arch. His many television credits include Dracula, Bad Sisters, The Outlaws, The Affair, and The New Look.
Born in Odense, he is a prolific stage actor, having trained at Denmark's National Theatre School. In London, he performed The Evil at the St James’s Theatre and Daddy at the Almeida Theatre.
Kaouther Ben Hania (Tunisia)
Kaouther Ben Hania is a Tunisian filmmaker whose work moves between fiction and documentary, often exploring power, injustice, and the fragile place of the individual within oppressive systems. Her most recent film, The Voice of Hind Rajab, was presented in the Competition at the Venice Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. Her previous film, Four Daughters, won the Œil d’Or at the Festival de Cannes and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film. Her earlier works include The Man Who Sold His Skin, which was nominated for the Oscar for Best International Feature Film; Beauty and the Dogs; and The Challat of Tunis. With a singular cinematic language that blends realism, performance, and political urgency, Ben Hania has established herself as one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary world cinema.
Andrew Haigh (United Kingdom)
Andrew Haigh is an award-winning British writer-director whose critically acclaimed All of Us Strangers received six BAFTA nominations, including for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. The film received nominations for four Gotham Awards and three Independent Spirit Awards. Haigh's previous feature films include Lean on Pete (2017), 45 Years (2015), for which Charlotte Rampling earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, and his breakout hit, Weekend (2011). For television, Haigh served as an executive producer and the lead writer-director on the HBO show Looking (2014–2016). He also directed all five episodes of the 2012 limited series The North Water for BBC & AMC. A Long Winter is his most recent film.
Saïd Hamich Benlarbi (Morocco)
Saïd Hamich Benlarbi was born in Fez in 1986 and is a graduate of La Fémis. A producer, screenwriter, and director based in Paris and Casablanca, his producer credits include Laïla Marrakchi’s Strawberries, which was presented at the Festival de Cannes in 2026; Faouzi Bensaïdi’s Deserts, which was selected for the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes in 2023; Kamal Lazraq’s Hounds, which won the UCR Jury Prize at Cannes and was presented at the Marrakech International Film Festival in 2023; Yasmine Benkiran’s Queens, which was selected for the Venice Film Festival in 2022; and many others. He has also served as executive producer on some twenty films and television series, including Oliver Laxe’s Sirāt, Philippe Faucon’s Harkis, and Boris Lojkine’s Hope. Benlarbi made his directorial debut in 2018 with the feature film Return to Bollène, which was nominated for the Prix Louis-Delluc. In 2022, his short film The Departure was nominated for a César Award and won more than thirty festival awards. His second feature film, Across the Sea, was presented in La Semaine de la Critique at Cannes in 2024, competed in Marrakech, and won five prizes at the National Film Festival in Tangier, including the award for Best Film. In 2026, he directed the medium-length film In Search of the Gray Bird with Green Stripes, which was selected for the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes and won the Prix Jean-Vigo.
Vicky Krieps (Luxembourg)
Vicky Krieps is an acclaimed Luxembourgish actor whose captivating performances have established her as one of European cinema’s most distinctive and dynamic talents. Working across English-, French-, and German-language projects, Krieps is celebrated for her versatility, emotional depth, and fearless approach to complex characters. Internationally recognized for her breakout performance opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Academy Award-winning Phantom Thread, she has since built an impressive body of work that spans independent and international cinema. Her screen credits include Bergman Island, Hold Me Tight, Old, Corsage, Ingeborg Bachmann – Journey into the Desert and The Dead Don’t Hurt. Her portrayal of Empress Elisabeth of Austria in Corsage earned her the European Film Award for Best Actress and the prize for Best Performance from the Un Certain Regard section of the Festival de Cannes. More recently, Krieps starred in two of Ryan Murphy’s Monster series, taking on two roles in the most recent instalment, The Lizzie Borden Story. She recently wrapped production on Bradley Cooper’s Ocean’s Eleven prequel.
Gilles Lellouche (France)
Gilles Lellouche began his career in the early 2000s, making a name for himself in films such as Love Me If You Dare and Love Is in the Air. His career took a huge step forward in 2006 when he appeared in Guillaume Canet’s Tell No One, and he went on to shine in hits including Little White Lies and The Infidels. More recently, Lellouche has taken on diverse roles in films such as Cédric Jiménez’s The Stronghold and Jeanne Herry’s Pupille and All Your Faces. Lellouche is also a director and screenwriter. His first feature film, Narco, which he co-directed with Tristan Aurouet in 2004, was followed by Sink or Swim, which had its premiere at the Festival de Cannes in 2018. In 2024, his third feature film, Beating Hearts, was selected for Cannes and received thirteen nominations for César Awards, among them Best Director. This year, Lellouche stars in Rémi Bezançon’s Murder in the Building and Pierre Salvadori’s The Electric Kiss, and plays Jean Moulin in László Nemes’s Moulin.
Emma Mackey (France, United Kingdom)
After studying English and film at the University of Leeds, Emma Mackey made her debut on television before gaining international recognition in 2019 for her role as Maeve Wiley in the Netflix series Sex Education, a role she played for four seasons. On the big screen, she has appeared in Martin Bourboulon’s Eiffel, Kenneth Branagh’s Death on the Nile, and played Emily Brontë in France O’Connor’s Emily, a role that earned her the BAFTA for Best Newcomer in 2023. She went on to appear in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and James L. Brooks’ Ella McCay. Emma Mackey will soon star in Quentin Dupieux’s Full Phil, JJ Abrams’ The Great Beyond, Molly Gordon’s Peaked, and will play Jadis, the White Witch, in Greta Gerwig’s upcoming film, Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew.
Ramata-Toulaye Sy (France, Senegal)
Ramata-Toulaye Sy graduated from the Screenwriting Department of La Fémis in 2015 and first made a name for herself as a screenwriter. Among others, she co-wrote the scripts for Çağla Zencirci and Guillaume Giovanetti’s Sibel, which won both the FIPRESCI Prize and the Ecumenical Jury Prize at the Locarno Film Festival, as well as Atiq Rahimi’s Our Lady of the Nile, the winner of the Crystal Bear for Best Film in the Generation 14plus section of the Berlin International Film Festival. In 2020, she directed her first short film, Astel, which won awards at the Toronto International Film Festival and the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival. Her first feature film, Banel & Adama, was presented in the Official Competition at the Festival de Cannes and was selected to represent Senegal at the Academy Awards. While continuing her work as a screenwriter with several directors, Sy is currently preparing her second feature film, which will be shot in France.
