This week Morocco’s cinephile king shows the world that Marrakech is much more than silk slippers, snake-charmers and souks. Mohammed VI is celebrating his country’s love affair with the movies by flying in a phalanx of Hollywood hard-hitters to the
This week Morocco’s cinephile king showed the world that Marrakech is much more than silk slippers, snake-charmers and souks. Mohammed VI celebrated his country’s love affair with the movies by flying in a phalanx of Hollywood hard-hitters to the 10th International Film Festival of Marrakech.
Francis Ford Coppola was joined by Sigourney Weaver, Harvey Keitel, Keanu Reeves and Martin Scorsese. Other stars strutting the tapis rouge included Marion Cotillard, Eva Mendes, Last Days’ Michael Pitt and cine-legend James Caan, the subject of a Lifetime Achievement award. Jury president John Malkovich is being given a helping hand picking the best of the fest by Asian megastar Maggie Cheung and Mexican young-blood Gael Garcia Bernal. Strong contenders for a gong include Australian thriller Animal Kingdom and Park Jung-Bum’s drama about North Korean defectors, The Journals of Musan. The only American movie in competition is Philip crSeymour Hoffman’s directorial debut, Jack Goes Boating.
The great and the good are all staying at La Mamounia, an Art Deco palace whose ridiculously beautiful lawns overflow with orange blossom and 300-year-old olive trees. The iconic hotel has been an A-list favourite since Hitchcock filmed The Man Who Knew Too Much there in 1956. Winston Churchill called it “the most lovely spot in the world”. A casual trot through the bar revealed Keanu Reeves and entourage slumped over mint tea; and Alan Parker and Charlotte Rampling reminiscing over Angel Heart.
Mohamed hasn't neglected the hoi polloi. Marrakech’s beating heart, Djemaa el-Fna square is hosting nightly open-air film screenings among the Merguez vendors, poets, rabab-players and pre-school beggars. These include Greystoke, Legend of Tarzan — Christophe Lambert was in the crowd — The Man Who Would Be King and Amadeus.
The 10th International Film Festival of Marrakech runs until 11 December 2011.
Text by Louise Brealey
