23 projects and films selected for the 5th edition of the Atlas Workshops, held in Marrakech

The Atlas Workshops will take place in Marrakech from November 14-17, 2022. 
The industry platform of the Marrakech International Film Festival, which now plays a key role in the regions it covers, the Atlas Workshops have the stated mission of supporting a new generation of Moroccan, Arab and African filmmakers by exhibiting their projects on the international stage.

This year’s cohort features new talents such as Sameh Alaa (Egypt), winner of the Palme d'Or for a short film at the Festival de Cannes Film Festival, alongside filmmakers who have already made a name for themselves on the international scene, among them Meryem Benm'Barek (Morocco), who won a prize at Cannes with her first feature-length film Sofia; Rafiki Fariala (Central African Republic) and Peter Barbari (Lebanon), discovered at the Berlin International Film Festival with their respective films We, Students! and Death of a Virgin and the Sin of Not Living, and Mamadou Dia (Senegal), who won a prize at the Locarno Film Festival for Nafi's Father. In addition, Moroccan filmmaker Faouzi Bensaïdi will unveil excerpts from his new film Deserts to festival directors as part of the Atlas Film Showcase.
 

The 23 selected projects and films will receive tailor-made support from script, production, distribution, editing and music consultants before they participate in a co-production market attended by nearly 250 accredited international professionals. Juries will award financial prizes totaling €106,000, including the ArteKino Prize.

The Atlas Workshops also presents two round tables that focus on screenwriting through tracing the careers of established filmmakers and screenwriters; as well as a panel that brings together several key distributors from the Arab world. In parallel, professionals will share their expertise in sound, casting, working with archives and production in the Atlas Station workspace.

 
This year, seven films, including five from Morocco, that were supported by previous editions of the Atlas Workshops in the development and/or post-production stages have been selected for the programme of the 19th edition of the Marrakech International Film Festival:The Damned Don’t Cry by Fyzal Boulifa (Morocco), Queens by Yasmine Benkiran (Morocco), Fragments from Heaven by Adnane Baraka (Morocco), Abdelinho by Hicham Ayouch (Morocco), Goldfishes by Abdeslam Kelai (Morocco), Ashkal by Youssef Chebbi (Tunisia) and Under the Fig Trees by Erige Sehiri (Tunisia).

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