The Marrakech Film Festival’s industry-focused Atlas Workshops will complement its existing support for development and production with the Atlas Distribution Award – a brand-new initiative meant to fuel wider domestic and international distribution for the Moroccan, Arab and Pan-African films presented at the festival.
Taking inspiration from similar European schemes, the Marrakech Foundation will offer financial incentives to regional distributors releasing festival-selected titles. The grant will offer up to $5,500 per film and territory, with a global cap of $11,000 for multi-territory releases. In order to qualify, distributers need to present provisional distribution strategy and commit to a wide-release — with a flexible definition of that term, given territorial particularities — within a 12-month window following the close of each edition.
All Middle East and African films presented at the festival will be eligible, while Atlas Workshops director Hédi Zardi tells Variety that he expects to award up to 15 projects in this year’s inaugural class. Eligible titles at this year’s festival include Kamal Lazraq’s “Hounds,” Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s “Banel & Adama” and Asmae El Moudir’s “The Mother of All Lies,” among many more.
“The idea is to really circulate these works between countries,” Zardi explains. “We want to encourage the visibility of Moroccan, Arab and African cinema by encouraging collaboration between distributors from different countries in the region. [We’d hope to see] collaborations between Lebanese and Moroccan distributors, or between Tunisian and Senegalese, or between two or three countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.”
“We also want to encourage local filmgoers’ curiosity,” Zardi continues. “Because there are storytelling similarities, cultural similarities and also discoveries to made. It’s a real incentive to revitalize theatrical circuits, which are still very much alive and kicking in the MENA and African countries. In Morocco, we’ve seen a resurgence of movie theaters, with old cinemas being restored and new multiplexes opening, and there’s a real craze and hunger for local films.”
