Marrakech Festival Announces Coppola-Led Jury
The 15th edition of the Marrakech Intl. Film Festival – one of the biggest events in Africa and the Arab world – has announced the nine members of its festival jury, presided over by Francis Ford Coppola.
Coppola follows in the footsteps of Marrakech’s list of prestigious jury presidents, which has included Martin Scorsese in 2013 and Isabelle Huppert in 2014.
Coppola will be joined by helmers Anton Corbijn (Netherlands, “Life”), Jean-Pierre Jeunet (France, “The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet”), Naomi Kawase (Japan, “Still the Water”), Thomas Vinterberg (Denmark, “Far From the Madding Crowd”), actor-director Sergio Castellitto (Italy, “You Can’t Save Yourself Alone”), actress-producer Olga Kurylenko (Ukraine, “A Perfect Day”), and thesps Richa Chadda (India, “Gangs of Wasseypur”) and Amal Ayouch (Morocco, “The Gospel of Mark”).
In previous editions, jury members and guest directors have participated in master classes and talks to audiences comprising local film students.
In order to encourage budding Moroccan filmmakers the fest includes the Cinecoles short film competition, now in its sixth edition, whose five-person jury has also been unveiled: Jury president is Belgian writer-director Joachim Lafosse (“The White Knights”), who is joined by actress-directors Valeria Bruni Tedeschi (France/Italy, “Latin Lover”) and Valeria Golino (Italy, “An Italian Name”), Moroccan helmer Saad Charaibi (“Femmes en Miroirs”) and thesps Anais Demoustier (France, “Marguerite et Julien”) and Niels Schneider (Canada/France, “Kokoro”).
The festival’s full line-up, including the competition pics, is expected to be announced shortly.
Highlights of this year’s edition include a tribute to Canadian cinema – including films by Atom Egoyan, David Cronenberg, James Cameron and Denis Arcand – and a major Canadian delegation is slated to attend.
The 15th edition of the Marrakech Intl. Film Festival runs Dec. 4-12.
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