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The Atlas Workshops is Marrakech International Film Festival’s vital industry and talent-development programme for projects in development, films in production and in post-production. Among this year’s selections of films in development we find Flowers of the Dead – a new fiction feature project titled by Lisbon-based, Cabo Verdean filmmaker Nuno Miranda – who just premiered his short The Last Harvest at Rotterdam and who worked as an assistant on Pedro Costa’s Vitalina Varela. He previously premiered his docu Kmêdeus at the fest in 2020. This new project is inspired by true events. Here is the synopsis: In Praia, Tempu, an introverted undertaker, mourns the death of his father while facing family pressure to sell their country home and leave Cabo Verde.…...

Bye Bye Tiberiasdirector Lina Soualem is among the filmmakers selected for theseventh edition of the expanded Atlas Workshops, the industry platform and talent incubatorfor Arab and African filmmakers of the 2024 Marrakech International Film Festival, for which US director Jeff Nichols will be this year’s mentor.

Soualem is taking part with her first fiction featureAlicante,along with filmmakers include French-Moroccan actor turned director Djanis Bouzyani with his documentaryAnd Still I Riseand Mouloud Ouyahia with the follow-up to his Cannes 2023 Directors’ Fortnight shortThe House is On Fire, Might as Well Get Warmwith his first featureThe Source.

Of the 17 projects in development,...

U.S. director Jeff Nichols – whose “The Bikeriders” recently made a splash at Cannes and Telluride – is set to be the official patron of the upcoming Marrakech International Film Festival’s Atlas Workshops that will see him mentoring selected projects in various stages from the Middle East and North Africa.

Launched in 2018, the Atlas Workshops are an industry initiative to foster and support the emergence of a new generation of Moroccan, Arab, and African filmmakers that provides an environment for exchanges between global professionals and regional talent.

The Marrakech fest’s industry platform this year comprise 17 projects in development and 10 films in production or post-production, hailing from 13 countries. These works have been selected from more than 300 applications received by the workshop from across the African continent and the Arab world.

Standout projects on display at the workshops include “El Sett” by prominent Egyptian director Marwan Hamed (“‘The Yacoubian Building”). The film,...

U.S. director Jeff Nichols has been named as the 2024 patron of the Marrakech International Film Festival’s Atlas Workshops, as the talent and project incubator also unveils the projects selected for this year’s edition.

Launched in 2018, the initiative has supported a raft of emerging and more established filmmakers and their projects, hailing from Morocco, the Arab world, and Africa.

Nichols – whose filmography includes 2011 Cannes Critics’ Week winner Take Shelter, Cannes Palme d’Or contenders Mud (2012) and Loving (2016) as well as more recent credit The Bikeriders – is the second announced patron.

The role was created last year, with Martin Scorsese due to kick off the inaugural patronship, but he was forced to cancel his Marrakech trip for personal reasons at the eleventh hour.

Nichols will take part in a number of sessions with selected projects in development and post-production. This year’s cohort of filmmakers will be known as the Class of Jeff Nichols.