Marrakech festival spotlights tensions animating Morocco's movie industry

After the movie “Cabo Negro” screened at the Marrakech International Film Festival this week, organizers anticipating backlash whisked its crew away and canceled director Abdellah Taia’s scheduled post-film Q&A.

The film — selected as one of the festival’s 70 features and approved by authorities to be shot in Morocco — is a queer tale of two young men spending a summer on a beach in the north of the country.

“I am Moroccan. I am gay. And I always have wanted to put the reality of Moroccan gays in cinema,” Taia said, introducing the film at a screening last week. “The love that I never got growing up, I invented it; I created it; and I put it in ‘Cabo Negro’ to give it to today’s Moroccan youth.”

Sixteen years after Taia came out in Moroccan media and 11 years after he released his first film with gay protagonists, the subject of “Cabo Negro” isn’t new. Nor was his statement out of step with the actors and directors who similarly laud what movies are capable of at the festival.

Yet the chain of events that followed laid bare some of the tensions animating Morocco’s film industry.

When the Marrakech festival rolls out its red carpet each year, movie stars in attendance find sunny winter weather, luxurious resorts and a venue to laud cinema and its power to change minds. This year’s event wrapped up on Saturday and featured stars such as actor Sean Penn and director Luca Guadagnino. But the image that the festival projects about freedoms in Morocco’s film industry often clashes with censorship and economic realities facing filmmakers.

Such tensions have become paramount for the global film industry as new festivals crop up in countries like Saudi Arabia and China, the world’s second largest entertainment industry.

In Morocco, foreign films with sex scenes can screen at the Marrakech Film Festival without issue, yet normally segments that contain kissing in films such as “Titanic” or “Spiderman” are censored on Moroccan television. Audiences can applaud a film about Iran’s repression of nationwide protests in 2022. But Moroccan journalists and activists critical of the government continue to be sentenced to prison time, including as recently as last month. And Moroccan films like “Cabo Negro” may be shown, but homosexuality remains outlawed under Morocco’s penal code.

When a video of Taia’s remarks spread in Moroccan media and on social networks, supporters defended his right to freedom of expression while detractors, including a former prime minister, questioned why films about homosexuality were allowed to be screened at all.

The festival’s French-led management team declined to comment about the “Cabo Negro” screening or scrapped Q&A but have previously described the festival as a a platform for the region's filmmakers.

“What makes the identity of Marrakech unique is it creates a ... space to have prestigious big names of the industry coming very generously to meet the audience and at the same time giving a strong spotlight on new discoveries,” Remi Bonhomme, the festival’s artistic director, said last week. “We work with this emerging generation of filmmakers from Morocco, the Arab region and the African continent.”

But some have begun to ask about who and what the festival serves.

“There are people who think the festival is some ‘bling bling’ thing only for foreigners, only for the country’s marketing,” said Mariam El Ajraoui, a Moroccan film scholar and Abu Dhabi University professor. “There are others who think that to support local cinema, you have to look abroad.”

Moroccan film, at home and abroad

Morocco’s film industry has risen to new heights over the past decade, with movies winning awards at the Cannes Film Festival and productions like “Gladiator II” shooting in the country.

Despite growth, it remains relatively small domestically. Morocco projects $11 million worth of tickets will be sold in 2024 — a sum almost double the box office total from a decade ago. Less than half the tickets sold are for Moroccan films.

Morocco’s film authority has offered $5.9 million in support to 32 films this year, roughly $184,000 per movie. Because it often costs more for movies to make it to the screen, the majority of films seek state or private funds outside Morocco, either in Europe or the Middle East. Such a funding landscape boosts films with narratives that can win approval from Moroccan authorities and also appeal to what western producers think about Morocco.

“You have to get the money either in Morocco or outside Morocco,” said a producer who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of repercussions because his films often apply for state funding.

Films that get necessary funding and authorization often thread a fine line. They take on themes like religion, sexuality and the battle between tradition and modernity, but often subtly and without explicit words in the scripts they submit for film permits.

“If the CCM is against you, you find funding outside. But you still must shoot the movie in Morocco, so you need the ‘OK’ from the CCM,” the producer added, using the French acronym for Morocco’s film authority.

Taia’s film “Cabo Negro” was a low budget endeavor with no state support, but received authorization from CCM.

“Why not? If there's a population interested in these films, why deprive them?” said CCM director Abdelaziz El Bouzdaini. “That's what it's like in Morocco. We're a welcoming country.”

Directors describe industry pressures

Addressing these social issues wins festival placement, international praise and access to foreign funding. But for others like Taia, addressing those very taboos too directly can risk domestic pushback.

“There’s a sort of paradox that I haven’t been able to explain to myself about how the market works. … Social films that might be less audience-friendly get a lot more spectators,” director Yasmine Benkiran said on a festival panel on Friday.

Filmmakers whose work centers on social issues, regardless of the level of taboo, say their inspirations are straightforward and argue that the themes they cover are part of Moroccan life.

Director Nabil Ayouch’s film “Everybody Loves Touda,” about the struggles of a Moroccan folk singer who moves from an impoverished village to the country’s largest city, premiered at Cannes, was shown at the festival last week and opens in Moroccan theaters on Dec. 11.

His movies have dealt with radicalization, poverty and sexuality, including “Much Loved,” a film about prostitutes in Marrakech that Morocco banned in 2015. The country has previously submitted six of his movies to be considered for the Oscars’ Best International Feature award.

In the past, some in Morocco have criticized Ayouch’s choice of topics. But he said in an interview that he was inspired by stories and rarely thought about whether subjects may appeal to audiences in Morocco or the West.

“I am trying to be as frank and sincere as I can be when I’m doing my movies,” Ayouch said. “Common points in my work are a strong interest in people that we don’t especially want to hear or see because it’s much easier to judge them.”