The Centre Cinématographique Marocain (CCM) has unveiled the official selection for the 20th Tangier National Film Festival.
With 30 films in the official competition, this unmissable event of Moroccan cinema will be held from March 1st to 9th.
The feature films were selected by a committee chaired by film critic Omar Belkhemmar. His fellow jury members were Sabah Bendaoud, Jihane Bougrine and Ahmed El Housni, all four from the world of culture. They watched 22 dramas and 7 documentaries, selecting 15.
Omar Belkhemmar spoke about their choices: “Our priority as a selection committee was to choose films which have the necessary ingredients for a festival competition – in other words the ideas they express, the subject of the script and how that is treated in the cinematography.”
Among the feature films selected is Mohamed Zineddaine ’s second film, La guérisseuse (The Healer), presented last December at the Marrakesh International Film Festival. Also in the official competition are Meryem Benm’Barek’s first feature Sofia and Selma Bargach’s Indigo.
On the documentary side, two of the 7 films submitted attracted the attention of the selection committee: Hind Bensari’s We Could Be Heroes, winner of the Best International Documentary Award at the 2018 Hot Docs Festival, and Lahcen Majid’s Vie côtoyant la mort.
A separate selection committee for short films chose 15 of the 33 films submitted. The director Mohamed Mouftakir chaired that committee, with Abdelahk Najib, Jihane El Bahhar and Tariq Khalami.
Sources: http://www.2m.ma, https://www.h24info.ma, https://lematin.ma
