Given the recent tragic events from Paris to California, there was much to talk about with Jury head Francis Ford Coppola reciting the Koran and Bill Murray talking about his love of Morocco and Muslim friends.
At the nightly disco, guests from all cultures danced together with abandon.
Marrakech does a great job of bringing down top talent from all over the world and programming a diverse range of East meets West films, not to mention fabulous entertaining from stilt walkers and fire eaters at the closing night, to lavish feasts.
This year there was an added twist. The jury did not award just one film but all films and that caused some debate among reporters.
The Jury of the 15th edition of the Marrakech International Film Festival, with president of the jury Francis Ford Coppola and jury members Amal Ayouch, Sami Bouajila, Sergio Castellitto, Richa Chadda, Anton Corbijn, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Naomi Kawase and Olga Kurylenko, have chosen the following award winners amongst the 15 international feature films in competition:
L'ÉTOILE D'OR - LE GRAND PRIX DU FESTIVAL
THE GOLDEN STAR - FESTIVAL GRAND PRIZE
VERY BIG SHOT (Film kteer kbeer) de/by Mir-Jean BOU CHAAYA (Liban & Qatar/Lebanon & Qatar)
PRIX DE LA MISE EN SCÈNE
BEST DIRECTING PRIZE
NEON BULL (Boi neon) de/by Gabriel MASCARO (Brésil, Uruguay & Pays-Bas/Brazil, Uruguay & Netherlands)
PRIX D'INTERPRÉTATION FEMININE
BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS
Galatéa BELLUGI
pour le film/for the film
KEEPER de/by Guillaume SENEZ (Belgique, Suisse & France/Belgium, Switzerland & France)
PRIX D'INTERPRÉTATION MASCULINE
BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR
Gunnar JÓNSSON
pour le film/for the film
VIRGIN MOUNTAIN (L’Histoire du géant timide - Fúsi) de/by Dagur KÁRI (Islande & Danemark/Iceland & Denmark)
PRIX DU JURY décerné à chaque film de la compétition à l’exception de l’Étoile d’or
JURY PRIZE given to each film of the competition except the Grand Prize
BABAI de/by Visar MORINA (Allemagne, Kosovo, Macédoine & France/Germany, Kosovo, Macedonia & France)
CLOSET MONSTER de/by Stephen DUNN (Canada)
COP CAR de/by Jon WATTS (États-Unis/USA)
DESIERTO de/by Jonás CUARÓN (Mexique & France/Mexico & France)
KEEPER de/by Guillaume SENEZ (Belgique, Suisse & France/Belgium, Switzerland & France)
KEY HOUSE MIRROR (Nøgle hus spejl) de/by Michael NOER (Danemark/Denmark)
LINGERING MEMORIES de/by Keiko TSURUOKA (Japon/Japan)
NEON BULL (Boi neon) de/by Gabriel MASCARO (Brésil, Uruguay & Pays-Bas/Brazil, Uruguay & Netherlands)
PARADISE (Ma dar behesht) de/by Sina Ataeian DENA (Iran & Allemagne/Iran & Germany)
REBELLIOUS GIRL (Insoumise) de/by Jawad RHALIB (Belgique & Maroc/Belgium & Morocco)
STEEL FLOWER de/by PARK Suk-young (Corée du Sud/South Korea)
THITHI de/by Raam REDDY (Inde & États-Unis/India & USA)
TOLL BAR de/by Zhassulan POSHANOV (Kazakhstan)
VIRGIN MOUNTAIN (L’Histoire du géant timide - Fúsi) de/by Dagur KÁRI (Islande & Danemark/Iceland & Denmark)
Le Jury Cinécoles présidé par Joachim Lafosse, entouré de Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Saâd Chraïbi, Valeria Golino et Niels Schneider a décerné le prix du meilleur court métrage parmi les 7 courts métrages marocains Cinécoles en compétition:
The Cinécoles Jury with president Joachim Lafosse, and jury members Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Saâd Chraïbi, Valeria Golino and Niels Schneider have chosen an award winner for best short film amongst the 7 Cinécoles Moroccan short films in competition:
LE PRIX CINÉCOLES
THE CINÉCOLES PRIZE
LA FILLE QUI VENAIT DE NULLE PART de/by Reda JAI
(Studio M - Casablanca)
Discours de Francis Ford Coppola, président du jury de la 15e édition du Festival International du Film de Marrakech à l’occasion de la cérémonie du palmarès:
Speech of Francis Ford Coppola, president of the jury of the 15th edition of the Marrakech International Film Festival during the Award Ceremony:
Once my granddaughter exclaimed to me "I love All Cinema" and I was startled.
"But surely some movies are better than others" I said. But then I learned from her, realizing that any true cinema originating from pure motives is beautiful. It's so hard to make a film, doing it requires labor for years under the most difficult circumstances, against often hopeless odds and yet it's no sooner born then it's immediately criticized and torn apart. Festivals created to celebrate films soon become market places where critical journalism takes pleasure in making and breaking careers.
And our world is much like that; we call it 'Dog eat Dog', and when we build statues in the park, it is always of a single man rather than the groups of people who are the true heroes of human accomplishments; such as the cinema itself, television, aviation, medicine and physics which were all invented and furthered by groups of people working together, step by step on the shoulders of previous generations.
These are times when we human beings can accomplish any goal, however difficult by working together -- and so in that spirit, I would like now to announce the Jury Prize for cinema at the 15th Marrakech film festival -- it, I am proud to say, is something fresh and new: a split prize and like all the prizes not unanimous, but was a majority vote of the jury:
For its compelling artistry and symbolic parable of all of today's refugees, DESIERTO by Jonas Cuaron.
For its reliance on pure sound and image to expose the feelings of its beautiful protagonist, STEEL FLOWER by Park Suk-Young.
For its command of suspense and story through the skill of its performances and inventive dramaturgy, COP CAR by Jon Watts.
For taking us into a extraordinary world previously unknown to us and for its modern non-narrative use of cinema and its unique characters, NEON BULL by Gabriel Mascaro.
For its fertile imagination and many brilliant touches of cinema in the moving search for identity of a young man, CLOSET MONSTER, by Stephan Dunn.
For a joyous view of life in a village in India with unforgettable characters, THITHI by Raam Reddy.
For the heart-filling tale of the love and caring of a gentle Giant, VIRGIN MOUNTAIN, by Dagur Kari.
For the exquisite performance of pubescent love of a woman even among the elderly, KEYHOUSE MIRROR, and conversely, for its heart-breaking story of teenagers trying to make and keep a new family, KEEPER, by Guillaume Senez.
For its touching story of an orphaned girl connecting with disenfranchised boy in a reiteration of the great Japanese tradition ghost stories, LINGERING MEMORIES, by Keiko Tsuruoka.
For its glimpse of a way of life without permission, contrasting of the joy of living against strict constraints, PARADISE, by Sina Ataeian Dena.
Also, the vivid tenacious link between a young son and his father to survive in aworld of barriers in BABAI, by Visar Morina.
And finally, for the parable of two lives connecting, one privileged, the othernot, TOLL BAR by Zhassulan Poshanov, and for this Kingdom tolerance of self-criticism in showing treatment of those who protest for the struggle for the right for a living wage, REBELLIOUS GIRL, by Jawed Rhalib.
Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, this year's JURY PRIZE is for Cinema itself.
