Farouk Essalhi, a 17-year-old high school student, and four of his classmates have created the Moroccan Youth Film Festival, which will be held at Rabat’s Renaissance Cinema on September 29th. In only three months the founder-organisers have managed to attract 700 participants from 74 countries.
The jury will be chaired by Moroccan director and comic author Hicham Lasri. It will include other important figures from Moroccan cinema, including film-maker Jamal El Omari and the Franco-Moroccan writer / director, Sofia Alaoui.
It is the first Moroccan short film festival for the under-19’s. Farouk Essalhi explained his approach in an interview with HuffPost Morocco: “all over the world I saw festivals encouraging young people to make short films – but not in Morocco. So with friends at school I launched this venture to offer a similar event for high school students.” He is supported by Youssef El Achhab, director of the recent Morocco Adventure Film Festival.
Source: HuffPost Maroc
