The jury prize was shared by director Maryam Touzani for 'The Blue Caftan', which is Morocco's entry for the Oscars, and Portugal's Cristele Alves Meira for 'Alma Viva'.
Iranian director Emad Aleebrahim-Dehkordi’s feature directorial debut A Tale Of Shemroon won the Étoile d’Or award—the festival grand prize – at the Marrakech International Film Festival.
While receiving the honour, Dehkordi dedicated his prize to the women of Iran, who are currently protesting for their rights and freedom in the country.
The film A Tale of Shemroon explores the life of a young Iranian living in Shemroon, north of Tehran, who gets pulled deeper into the drug trade while trying to make some easy money through his connections with Tehran’s wealthy youth.
The film festival jury was chaired by Oscar-winning Italian director Paolo Sorrentino, French actor Tahar Rahim, Lebanese director Nadine Labaki and the German-American actress Diane Kruger.
The feature, which was among 14 first and second films competing in the festival’s main competition, world premiered in the San Sebastian’s New Directors section earlier this year.
The Jury Prize was awarded ex æquo to Portuguese director Cristèle Alves Meira’s Alma Viva and Moroccan filmmaker Maryam Touzani’s The Blue Caftan. Both films are Oscar entries this year for the directors’ respective countries.
The 19th edition of the Marrakech International Film Festival marked its return after a three-year, two-edition hiatus due to the pandemic.
The festival welcomed just under 20,000 accredited guests — nearly doubling the record from the 18th edition — and a whopping 150,000 overall viewers over the course of 124 screenings in four locations, including free nightly screenings in Marrakech’s iconic Jemaa el Fna square.
