Marrakech International Film Festival: A sober opening, punctuated by great voices from cinema

The 22nd Marrakech International Film Festival opened on Friday November 28 in the evening with the elegant restraint that now characterizes the event.

The Palais des Congrès was packed to welcome the jury, chaired by Bong Joon-ho. Joon Ho and a loyal film-loving community, eager to reconnect with a busy week of screenings, meetings and tributes.
Since the festival’s first edition, Marrakech has maintained a true cinephile tradition, and its audience experiences each edition as a natural addition to its history. For this edition, and from the very first moments, Bong Joon Ho set the tone. In a personal speech, he recalled when he was 22 as an age « when I watched three or four films a day, devouring cinema «. The parallel with the festival was not insignificant.

«With the energy of an
institution that has lived and breathed international cinema»

Hussein Fahmi waving to the audience during the tribute held in his honor at the opening of the festival (Photo by the FIFM Festival)

“Marrakech enters its 22nd year with the energy of an institution that has lived and breathed international cinema,” he noted, before paying tribute to a venue that has supported both independent Korean cinema and established filmmakers from around the world. The first tribute of this edition was dedicated to Hussein Fahmi, an Egyptian actor whose career spans more than half a century of Arab cinema history. Actress Yousra, who shares decades of artistic collaboration with Fahmi , delivered a moving speech in which she recalled Fahmi’s place in the popular imagination, «an elegance that is not a style but a signature» , and an artist who «carried Arab cinema beyond borders» . The tribute took on a somber tone when she spoke of the passing of her brother, Mustafa Fahmi. «The grace and quiet dignity he displayed during those painful days surpassed anything I had ever seen of him», she confided.
The audience received these words in profound silence, as if the praise for the actor also became a tribute to the capacity of Arab cinema to reinvent itself through figures who, like Fahmi, have traversed eras, trends, and crises without ever compromising their integrity. The actor’s presence on stage, visibly moved, prolonged this moment of public intimacy. It was also a reminder that Marrakech had welcomed Hussein Fahmi from the very first edition of the festival, which gave his return added symbolic significance.

Jodie Foster, an ovation and the Scorsese surprise

The following day, Jodie Foster received her tribute, which became one of the highlights of this 22nd edition. The actress took to the stage to a standing ovation before delivering a moving and deeply human speech. She praised Bong Joon Ho, calling him «so inspiring, talented, surprising», then gave a sober account of her sixty years in cinema. « I started in the 1960s… «It’s been a very long time indeed. And yet, it is gone by in the blink of an eye», she confided. Foster spoke about what still drives her: telling stories, exploring human frailties, working with this community that she described as a space «where we hold hands, side by side, in the dark». The evening was marked by a surprise. A video message from Martin Scorsese came to salute the actress he had directed when she was a teenager. It was a moment of cinematic complicity, sober and sincere, which electrified the room. She concluded by paying tribute to Morocco, «beautiful, mysterious, vibrant» , and to the «rare generosity» she received in Marrakech, before slipping in a sentence that touched the audience: «My greatest success in life is being happy… love, there is nothing truer».

Bong Joon-ho’s take on Jodie Foster

A radiant Jodie Foster waves to the audience during the tribute held in her honor at the Marrakech Film Festival (Photo by FIFM Festival)

Just before Jodie Foster’s speech, Bong Joon Ho took the floor to pay tribute to her with his characteristic finesse. His speech, both admiring and rigorously constructed, focused on what he calls the «big choices» in cinema. He recalled how certain narrative decisions, seemingly simple, become fundamental to a career. In The Silence of the Lambs, the film refrains from illustrating Clarice’s trauma in order to «fill the screen with Jodie Foster’s face alone». According to the director, this choice is not only aesthetic; it places the emotion in the actress, not in the image. Bong Joon Ho continued with Contact, where cosmic astonishment lasts only a few seconds. Once again, the film focuses on Foster’s face, «immersed in wonder» , a shot that has become iconic because it brings the astronomical experience back to a human experience. For the Korean filmmaker, these moments reflect a simple truth. The power of cinema often comes from the presence of an actor rather than the spectacle itself. He also mentioned Taxi Driver, describing her participation as «the film’s founding choice» . This powerful statement puts Foster back at the center of a classic film in which she was only a teenager. «Jodie Foster is not someone who was chosen. She chose. She followed her own path as an artist», he concluded.

Amine BOUSHABA