From Jacob Elordi‘s new bearded look to Sean Penn’s red carpet debut with girlfriend Valeria Nicov, this year’s Marrakech Film Festival has been making headlines in mainstream media like it never did before. Yet, the event has existed for 21 years.
For over two decades, the festival has indeed played a pivotal role in fostering a new generation of filmmakers from the Arab world, especially Morocco, fueled by the ambition of Marrakech Film Festival director Melita Toscan du Plantier, a Paris-based producer, cinephile and straight shooter. The Marrakech adventure kicked off in 2001, when her late husband, Daniel Toscan du Plantier, an influential French producer, was asked by Morocco’s King Mohammed VI to help create the film festival. A year later, HRH Prince Moulay Rachid took over as president of the festival and its foundation, and when Daniel Toscan du Plantier died abruptly in 2003, Melita took the reins.
Today, Melita Toscan du Plantier, who lives and breathes Marrakech Film Festival all year around, has succeeded in establishing the event as a significant international film festival rather than a mere red-carpet event in a fiercely competitive environment. Through her wide-ranging friendships, she’s managed to bring onto the festival some of the world’s most prestigious filmmakers and talent – from Martin Scorsese to Robert de Niro and Agnes Varda — to shine a spotlight on emerging Arab directors.
Toscan du Plantier has this year scored the biggest coup of her career at Marrakech fest, enlisting Luca Guadagnino as president of a jury comprising Jacob Elordi, Andrew Garfield, Patricia Arquette and Ali Abbasi, among others. The roster of masterclasses is equally impressive, with Justin Kurzel (whose movie “The Order” opened the festival), David Cronenberg, Sean Penn, Justine Triet, Tim Burton, Alfonso Cuaron, Todd Haynes and Walter Salles, among others.
“I just read somewhere that I organize this festival like the wedding of my child, and I think that description nails it,” says Toscan du Plantier on day 2 of the festival. Always alert in spite of having slept three hours for five consecutive days (from what she says), she admits being “obsessively perfectionist” during a quick conversation interrupted by a dozen calls and text messages revealing the extent of her involvement in every logistical aspect of the festival and caretaking for guests (she may even know what they ate for breakfast).
A week ago, during an interview at her Paris-based office (which was entirely decorated by her staff for her birthday), Toscan du Plantier said the festival’s emphasis on mentorship has translated into real success for emerging filmmakers, citing Ismae El Moudir whose movie “The Mother Of All Lies” made history last year as the first Moroccan film to win the festival’s top prize, the Étoile D’Or, from a jury presided over by Jessica Chastain. “The Mother of All Lies,” which opened at Un Certain Regard at Cannes, went on to represent Morocco in the international feature race at the Oscars. She also cited Sofia Alaoui whose film “Animalia” played at Sundance, as well as Maryam Touzani (“Adam,” “The Blue Caftan”), Yasmine Benkiran (“Reines”), Meryem Benm’barek (“Sophia”), Alaa Eddine Aljem (“Le miracle du saint Inconnu”), Ismaël El Iraki (Zanka Contact), Kamal Lazraq (Les Meutes) and Saïd Hamich whose film “La mer au loin” plays in competition this year.
“It’s a new generation that’s making a name for itself at the world’s biggest film festivals, and the majority of these newcomers are women, which is historic for Moroccan cinema, which has never had so many female directors,” said Toscan du Plantier. El Moudir’s film, for instance, was discovered by the director of the Sydney Film Festival at the Atlas Workshops, Marrakech’s industry sidebar, before it even played at Cannes, and programmed it at his festival in Sydney where it won best film.
“When my husband and I started the festival the first year, there were four Moroccan films a year. Today, there are about 35 of them,” she said. “Moroccan cinema has grown enormously over the years, and is highlighted by the Marrakech Festival.”
The fest has also contributed to giving Marrakech audiences “a taste for auteur films that are seldom distributed in Morocco” where “only big films that are either American, Egyptian or Bollywood films are released in theaters,” argues Toscan du Plantier.
The festival showcases films “from all over the world, from Japan, Korea, Poland, Brazil, etc. and all these films that are often socially minded movies, too,” she said, adding that she likes the idea that people “who don’t travel or travel very little, have this opportunity to see the world through these movies.”
Referring to the fast-expanding industry sidebar, the Atlas Workshops, overseen by the festival’s artistic director, Remi Bonhomme, Toscan du Plantier said it’s become a “key platform for a new generation of Moroccan filmmakers and producers who are making strides.”
She and Bonhomme form a dynamic duo surrounded by a team of fairly young people from different parts of the world. “In the office, we have people from Lebanon, Jordan, Tunisia and Morocco, among other places, and they come here to work with us on the artistic side, and we like the idea of transmission,” said the festival director, who started her career in the industry at the French promotion org Unifrance, where she met her husband Daniel, who was then its president.
The pedigree of talent she brought to Marrakech this year makes her “proud” on a personal level, because it took an infinite amount of work, but “above all, it’s about mentorship because directors who present their movies here know that their work will be seen by talent and filmmakers they admire.”
Moroccan film students, too, “will be able to exchange ideas with the world’s greatest directors and without the Marrakech Festival, they might never have had this experience,” she said.
At major film festivals such as Cannes or Venice, masterclasses aren’t open to the public, but at Marrakech anyone can attend for free, as long as they’ve registered online. The crowd is made up of film students, locals, journalists from national and international outlets, as well as talent. “The year we had Robert de Niro, everyone was in the room, including Guillermo del Toro, Tahar Rahim, Julian Schnabel and Gilles Lellouche!” she reminisced.
It’s her late husband, she said, who was her mentor and “gave [her] a taste for directors.” No wonder why Guadagnino referred to her as the “godmother of filmmakers” in his speech at the opening ceremony of the festival.
“I’m friends with a lot of international actors, but it’s the directors I’m passionate about and I think they can feel my passion. They know I’m sincere,” she said. “I’m much more enthused by the idea of having dinner with Martin Scorsese, Alfonso Cuaron or Walter Salles or Justin Kurzel and talk about movies for hours than anything else.”
Penn, who received a tribute on Saturday night (the first in many years), will give a rare masterclass at the festival. “He’s very reserved and shy and prefers to talk about humanitarian causes he cares about, for instance in Haiti and Ukraine, rather than talking about himself.”
“The idea of mentorship, of exchanging with young film lovers and students is what appealed to them,” she said, referring to Penn and Todd Haynes, among others. “Sean really wants to meet young people and he was eager to meet Ismae El Moudir because he loved her movie ‘The Mother of All Lies’ and was impressed by her talent.’ Todd also said right away, I really want to come and talk to young students.”
“At a lot of festivals, people who come are a bit jaded, but that’s not the case here. Moroccans know that being able to listen to great directors discuss their work, their point of view on the world, is a gift. These artists come here to give. It’s very generous of them because they don’t get paid to do it,” Toscan du Plantier noted. This year, she was able to get Garfield through Guadagnino, because the pair just worked together on the thriller “After The Hunt.” She then lured Elordi after meeting in Australia on the shoot of “The Narrow Road to the Deep North,” a miniseries directed by Kurzel, a longtime friend of Toscan du Plantier. Del Toro, another friend of the festival who just directed Elordi in “Frankenstein,” also helped enticing the actor.
“To get certain personalities, I pass on messages from others who have already been here, from ambassadors like Martin Scorsese, who is our godfather, who has been here seven times,” said Toscan du Plantier. “Sometimes, he can help me contact someone or put in a good word about the Marrakech Festival. And the same is happening with Guillermo Del Toro and Justin Kurzel, or Luca Guadagnino.”
Ultimately, the festival also has played a role in bringing people together at a time of geo-political turmoils, going back to its inaugural edition which took place in the aftermath of the terror attacks of 9/11.
“Morocco is a land of exchange, a welcoming land. Back in 2001, when we started the festival after the terrorist attacks, it was great to see all these nationalities, all these religions together on Muslim soil, 15 days after the attacks claimed by extremists,” she said. “But that at the time, His Majesty the King, Mohamed VI wanted to maintain the festival that year, despite everything, and to welcome all the people who dared to come, because many people were even afraid to take the plane.”
Ultimately, “people from all over the world came to talk about culture and cinema, and it was, I must admit, quite a magical atmosphere,” she said.
Last year, was also a particular edition as it unfolded just a little over a month following the Oct. 7th massacre, as the war in Gaza was raging.
“We were going through a period when all we talked about was division, and at the festival, all we talked about was uniting people, bringing them together through cinema. So it was complicated, and at the same time, it was powerful,” she said, also praising HRH Prince Moulay Rachid for his involvement and support for the festival.
This year is no less challenging, with ongoing wars in the Middle East and beyond, but that didn’t prevent the festival from pulling together guests from across the globe.
“We’ve really got all five continents together: Asia, Oceania, America, Europe and Africa,” she says. “Seeing all these international personalities in Marrakech is quite wonderful!”
