Noticias

Boasting a selection of 76 films from 33 countries spread across seven sections, this year’s Marrakech Film Festival will offer no shortage of cinematic treasure. Running over Nov. 11 – 19, the festival’s 19th edition will open with “Guillermo del Toro’s “Pinocchio” ahead of gala screenings of James Gray’s “Armageddon Time,” Paul Schrader’s “Master Gardener,” and Sally El Hosaini’s “The Swimmers.”

While hosting a handful of world premieres – including Anurag Kashyap’s Bollywood-flavored “Almost Love,” to be presented outdoors at Marrakech’s Jemaa El Fna Square – this year’s festival will also spotlight a number of jewels from the festival circuit.

Below are fourteen standouts from this year’s program.

“Abdelinho” (dir. Hicham Ayouch) (Moroccan Panorama)

Satirical comedy “Abdelinho” follows a young Moroccan man with samba in his bones and Brazil ever on his mind. Director Hicham Ayouch’s bright crowd-pleaser is one of several finished projects to graduate...

The African Film Heritage Project has announced that it will screen restorations of four African films on their home continent for the first time as part of the 50th anniversary of the Pan African Film Festival of Ouagadougou. The Afhp is a partnership between the Pan African Federation of Filmmakers (Fepaci), Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation, along with its affiliate archive the Cineteca di Bologna, and Unesco. The movies in question are Med Hondo’s “Soleil Ô” (1970), Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamima’s “Chronique des années de braise” (1975), Timité Bassori’s “La Femme au couteau” (1969), and Jean-Pierre Dikongue-Pipa’s “Muna Moto” (1975).

The Afhp will also present seven African films previously restored by Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project, including work by the likes of Ousmane Sembene, Djibril Diop Mambety, Shadi Abdel Salam and Ahmed El Maanouni.

“I can’t tell you how really deeply inspired and excited I am by African films; ‘Yeelen,...