Jesse Eisenberg's The Debut will open the 23rd Marrakech International Film Festival, running Nov. 20-28 in Morocco, and the program behind it is stacked with African, Arab, Caribbean and Latin American filmmakers.
The festival unveiled 76 films from 39 countries, including 10 world premieres, Screen International reported. The Debut stars Julianne Moore as a 1990s housewife who discovers her voice through a community theater group. The comedy arrives after stops at Telluride and Toronto and a closing-night slot at the BFI London Film Festival. French actress Marion Cotillard, as previously announced, presides over the competition jury.
African and Caribbean voices anchor the program
The 14-title official competition, open to first and second features vying for the Étoile d'Or, includes Haitian filmmaker Gessica Généus' Marie Madeleine, which Cup of Soul reviewed earlier this year. Also competing are Rafiki Fariala's Congo Boy, Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo's Rwandan production Ben'imana, Auguste Bernard Kouemo Yanghu's House of the Wind and Mexican director Fernanda Tovar's Sad Girlz. Three competition titles are world premieres: Moroccan filmmaker Yassine Marco Marroccu's Alkebulan, the Massalha brothers' Cairo Shadows and Farzad Samsami's Waves of Silence, which was shot in Morocco.
The Horizons section brings Arie and Chuko Esiri's Clarissa, the Lagos-set drama that tied for the lead in Gotham Awards nominations and that Neon opens Dec. 11. French-Senegalese director Alain Gomis' Dao, fresh off winning the top prize at Spain's Valladolid International Film Week, is also in Horizons, along with South African-set The Smell of Apples from John Trengove and Argentine director Benjamín Naishtat's Glaxo.
Gala screenings include Luca Guadagnino's Artificial, James Gray's Paper Tiger, Noah Segan's The Only Living Pickpocket in New York and Laïla Marrakchi's Strawberries. Two galas are world premieres: Brazilian director Fellipe Barbosa's Leila et la Nuit, inspired by the life of Moroccan photographer Leila Alaoui and starring Roschdy Zem and Marina Foïs, and Omar Hilal's His Weakest Creatures, a thriller set in Cairo's Giza Zoo starring Ahmed Helmy and Hend Sabry.
For audiences following Black and global-majority cinema, the lineup is a snapshot of how much of the year's most-discussed work comes from Africa and its diaspora, with several of those titles headed to U.S. screens as the awards calendar fills up.
