Cited by visiting media outlets as the “Cannes Film Fest of Africa”, I’m now in better position to assess the exactitudes as to why this isn’t a falsehood….but nor is this entirely accurate. The organizers of Marrakech Int. Film Festival know how to put on a show and throw a party. Star-wattage prestige and three minute BMW rides aside, the red carpet trimmings extend past the edifice known as the Palais and it spills out into the housed hotel shingding. The number of buffet styled dessert offerings for night one at the Sofitel (where my clan of journalists with The Film Stage’s Raffi Asdourian ThePlaylist’s Katie Walsh were among the guests) was ToysRUs excessive. Comparisons to the Croisette pretty much end there.
While everything is tailored to be a snazzy affair with high-end ceremony productions, and the energy outside this Palais (the premiere location for all film activity) you’d be hard-pressed to find Cannes quality films and would need to walk all the way back to the Jemaa el-Fnaa square and market to find a different bang for your buck. That’s not to say that a fest dependent on older films doesn’t contain some select, newer gems.
This was my first introduction to the festival, first steps into Morocco and first anything on the entire continent of Africa. Opening with a glitzy soiree reserved to Bill Murray, the 15th edition rolled out with Rock the Kasbah (read review) – an unwatchable film that happens to have been filmed in Marrekech. Sofia Coppola was on hand with the entire jury which had the Godfather himself as the top dog, and a reel was shown (including their two works together) looking back at Murray’s career. One glaring omission was his career rebirth film: Rushmore.
With no conceptualization of what the fourteen other editions felt like, people have been coming back and that’s music to the ears of the organizers. The official competition is an uneven one with the most prominent titles being the TIFF-Venice premiered Neon Bull by Gabriel Mascaro and not to be outdone, Stephen Dunn’s Closest Monster. I was housed at the perfumed hallways and epic pool dwellings Sofitel – with interviews either located across the street at the Es Saadi hotel or a short walk over to the La Mamounia and the epic garden. We’ll get to those later. Day one was meant to dazzle…and it did.
