The 7th Festival International de Film Documentaire à Agadir (FIDADOC) organized by the Association de Culture et d’Éducation par l’Audiovisuel, took place from May 4th to 9th. It was sponsored by the journalist and critic Luciano Barisone, director of the Visions du Réel Festival. Exclusively for documentaries, this festival allows ordinary people, young film-makers, particularly Palestinians and Egyptians, to express themselves on film. These films, all about the lives of young people and the transmission of values between generations, help the public understand the world we live in, a world in upheaval, in full social transformation.
The jury of Karim Boukhari (Morocco), Meritxell Bragulat Vallverdu (Spain), Marianne Khoury (Egypt) and Marie-Clémence Paes Andriamonta (Madagascar, France) awarded the Grand Prix Nouzha Drissi to the first feature of Franco Lebanese director Anna Roussillon “Je suis le peuple” which follows the political upheavals in Egypt – from Mubarak’s overthrow to the election of Mohamed Morsi – as seen from a village in the Luxor Valley. The Human Rights Award went to “Saken” by Jordanian film-maker Sandra Madi, the Special Jury Prize went to Lebanese director Myriam El Hajj for her film “Truce”, while FIDADOC’s official partner, 2M TV, awarded its Grand Prix to Algerian director Lamine Ammar-Khodja’s “Bla Cinima”. The 2M Grand Prix was given by Reda Benjelloun, the broadcasters head of magazines and documentaries. Finally, the Nourredine Kachti Audience Award went to “Aji-Bi, femmes de l’horloge” made by Moroccan director Raja Saddiki.
Alongside the international competition, there were several examples of recent documentary production from the various European countries supporting this genre. “Focus on Switzerland”, the guest country of the festival, presented recent Swiss documentaries while another Focus was devoted to recent Catalan documentaries. A thematic programme showed 50 years of Moroccan emigration to Belgium. The Panorama section was devoted to Moroccan films. There were also several short and long films by film-makers who have benefited from the “Ruche documentaire”, created three years ago by FIDADOC and designed to discover the Moroccan film-makers of tomorrow and help them make their projects.
Thanks to the support of 2M, FIDADOC’s official partner, this 7th edition will also have been “an opportunity to launch new initiatives which bring together the Moroccan documentary family and encourage the development of domestic production, so that Agadir and the Souss Massa Draa region become a centre of excellence for documentary creation, open to North African and sub-Saharan neighbours.”
Source: fidadoc.org
