The Marrakech International Film Festival, held each year in Marrakech, Morocco, announced the 28 projects and films selected for the 8th edition of the Atlas Workshops, which will take place from November 30 to December 4 during the festival’s 22nd edition (November 28–December 6, 2025).
The Marrakech International Film Festival is Morocco’s leading cinema event and one of Africa’s most visible platforms for global film culture. It combines international premieres with professional programs that develop, fund, and connect filmmakers from Africa, the Arab world, and beyond.
Romanian filmmaker Cristian Mungiu, winner of the Cannes Film Festival’s top award, the Palme d’Or, for “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” (2007), will serve as patron of the 2025 Atlas Workshops, mentoring participating filmmakers and leading professional discussions.
This year’s lineup will be the first presented under the new professional structure introduced on September 2, 2025, when the festival announced the creation of Atlas Programs, bringing all industry activities together under a single umbrella: the Atlas Workshops (a project-development lab for filmmakers from Africa, the Arab world, and Morocco), Atlas Station (training for early-career Moroccan producers and short-film directors), Atlas Distribution Meetings (a new regional market for distributors from Africa, the Arab world, and Europe), and Atlas Press (a program for film criticism and journalism).
The 2025 lineup features projects at different stages of completion, from early development to post-production, within the Atlas Workshops program.
Projects in Development
- “Akal” – Basma Rkioui (Morocco): A former alpine ski champion returns to the High Atlas Mountains to find the slopes of her childhood bare of snow. Through local memories and archival tapes, she retraces how a colonial-era ski resort became summer pastureland. 1st feature documentary. Production: Massala (France), Kasbah Films (Morocco).
- “Chapa 100” – Ique Langa (Mozambique): Details not yet public. 2nd fiction feature.
- “Chentian” – Suha Arraf (Palestine): Details not yet public. 2nd fiction feature.
- “A Childhood” – Scandar Copti (Palestine): Animated documentary built from testimonies of Palestinian children imprisoned under occupation. 3rd feature documentary (animated).
- “Les Dieux Délinquants” – Boubacar Sangaré (Burkina Faso): Tïtenga, a young villager, flees a life controlled by elders to find freedom in Ouagadougou, where he forms a gang of street children whose rebellion leads to a citywide uprising crushed by authorities. 1st fiction feature. Production: Adaptation of Augustin Sondé Coulibaly’s 1974 novel.
- “Hold Me (If You Want)” – Mounia Akl (Lebanon): Details not yet public. 2nd fiction feature.
- “Last Cow” – Amil Shivji (Tanzania): In a remote Maasai village, a cow survives an arrow to the neck and becomes a local and media sensation, exposing the clash between conservation policy, tourism, and Indigenous land rights. 3rd solo fiction feature. Production: Kijiweni Productions (Tanzania), co-production with Tamara Dawit (Ethiopia/Canada).
- “The Marches” – Vatche Boulghourjian (Lebanon): Details not yet public. 2nd fiction feature.
- “Siméon Idriss” – Zineb Wakrim (Morocco): A Senegalese musician and painter moves to a Moroccan village, where he assumes a new identity amid suspicion and prejudice. 1st fiction feature. Production: Atlantis Films (Morocco).
- “Under Green Skies” – Jad Chahine (Egypt): Details not yet public. 1st fiction feature.
- “Under Her Eye” – Amjad Al Rasheed (Jordan): Details not yet public. 2nd fiction feature.
- “Vanda” – Kamy Lara (Angola): A 55-year-old psychologist moves through Luanda, a city fractured by inequality and memory, in search of balance and self-definition. 1st fiction feature. Production: Uika Filmes (Angola).
Films in Shooting or Post-Production
- “Don’t Let the Sun Go Up on Me” – Asmae El Moudir (Morocco): A father digitizes old VHS tapes for his ill daughter, uncovering family memories and grief through film. 2nd feature documentary. Co-production with Al Jazeera.
- “Goma Enough Is Enough (Goma Trop C’est Trop)” – Elisé Sawasawa (Democratic Republic of the Congo): A testimony from Goma’s youth demanding peace after two decades of conflict and displacement. 1st feature documentary.
- “Grey Glow (Lueur Grise)” – Michèle Tyan (Lebanon): A character-driven exploration of isolation and moral fatigue set in contemporary Beirut. 1st fiction feature.
- “La Más Dulce” – Laïla Marrakchi (Morocco): After her release from prison, Fatema travels to Spain to work in strawberry fields and rebuild her life with her son, confronting exploitation and solidarity among migrant workers. 3rd fiction feature. Production: Lumen Films, Atelier de Production.
- “Orient Adagio (Qitar al-Sharq al-Bati’)” – Maha Haj (Palestine): An ensemble story set against shifting generational and political fault lines in the Middle East. 3rd fiction feature.
- “Safe Exit” – Mohammed Hammad (Egypt): A young man traumatized by witnessing his father’s murder as a child is drawn back into violence when he must hide one of his father’s killers. 2nd fiction feature. Production: Pareidolia Productions, Nomadis Images.
- “The Station (Al Mahattah)” – Sara Ishaq (Yemen): Set in a women-only fuel station in war-torn Yemen, Layal runs the business with her siblings amid family and societal pressure. 1st fiction feature.
- “Trip to Jerusalem” – Michel Zarazir and Gaby Zarazir (Lebanon): Lebanon, 1941: during a family lunch, a mother of eleven defies colonial and religious authority in an absurdist comedy of power and chaos. 1st fiction feature.
- “Vagabonds” – Amartei Armar (Ghana): Two orphaned brothers escape an institution and journey to Accra seeking family and freedom. Expanded from Armar’s award-winning short of the same title. 1st fiction feature.
- “Wolves” – Rami Kodeih (Lebanon): During Lebanon’s 2019 banking collapse, two sisters plan a daring overnight heist to recover their own frozen savings for life-saving surgery. 1st fiction feature. Production: RT Features, Anonymous Content.
Atlas Close-Ups (Moroccan Projects in Development)
- “Earth and Ashes (Terre et Cendres)” – Leyna Tahiri (Morocco): Synopsis not yet public. 1st fiction feature.
- “Into the Blue Night (Vers la Nuit Bleue)” – Halima Elkhatabi (Morocco): Synopsis not yet public. 1st fiction feature.
- “Remontada” – Reda Lahmouid (Morocco): Synopsis not yet public. 1st fiction feature.
- “The Tanjawi (Le Tangérois)” – Zahoua Raji and Ayoub Layoussifi (Morocco): Synopsis not yet public. 1st fiction feature.
- “Today, I Am 25 Years Old” – Shaden Safieddine Tazi (Morocco): Synopsis not yet public. 1st fiction feature.
Atlas Film Showcase
- “Until Dawn (Jusqu’à l’Aube)” – Mohamed Zineddaine (Morocco): A fiction feature nearing completion, presenting exclusive footage at the Atlas Workshops. Zineddaine is known for “The Healer (Mbarka)” and “Tu te souviens d’Adil?”
Atlas Station 2025 Participants
Producers: Lamia Bengelloun, Kenza Berrada Amor, Ines Lehaire, Linda Qibaa, Zainab Rabbaa, Fadila Taha, Oumayma Zekri Ajarrai.
Short films in post-production: “Barzakh” (Kenza Tazi), “The Bride of the Rain” (Driss Ouaamar), “Deserted Streets” (Batoul Benazzou), “Mesk Ellil” (Adnane Rami).
Marrakech’s Atlas Workshops structure increasingly aligns the festival with international industry hubs like Cannes’ Marché du Film, Berlin’s European Film Market, and Venice Production Bridge, which this year featured Morocco as a country in focus. Coincidentally, Morocco will also be the “Country in Focus” during the 2026 Berlinale EFM.
Yet Atlas Programs are regional by design, serving filmmakers, producers, and distributors across Morocco, the broader MENA region, and sub-Saharan Africa. The new Distribution Meetings directly address one of the continent’s weakest links — circulation — by gathering distributors from multiple markets in one space.
Thanks to an invitation, I’ll be on the ground in Marrakech this year — my first time attending in person.
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