The kick-off of the International Festival of Mediterranean Cinema of Tetouan (FCMT) was given on Friday evening at the Spanish Teatro, in the presence of several personalities from the world of politics, media, arts and culture.
This major film event, which this year celebrates its 27th anniversary brings together big names in national, Arab and international cinema, making the city of Tetouan the capital of Mediterranean cinema and a space for exchange and promotion of the culture of dialogue and tolerance.
During the opening ceremony, vibrant tributes were paid to Franco-Belgian actress Déborah François, Spanish actor Alex Brendemühl and Moroccan director Nour-Eddine Lakhmari. History to highlight different paths of Mediterranean artists, their specificities and their singularity. In a statement to Libé, Déborah François said she was honored and proud to receive this tribute in one of the biggest film festivals in Morocco, while emphasizing that this distinction is for her a testimony to the evolution of her career. professional.
The Minister of Youth, Culture and Communication, Mohamed Mehdi Bensaid, for his part stressed that this Festival reflects Morocco’s openness to its Mediterranean environment, and embodies the importance of the cultural dimension, in a context nationally marked by the new development model, which places culture as a strategic axis, and in a regional context marked by the solid bilateral and multilateral relations that Morocco maintains with the Mediterranean countries.
In a speech read on his behalf by the Secretary General of the Department of Communication, Mustapha Taimi, Mr. Bensaid indicated that this edition is not limited to the resumption of cinematographic activity in Tetouan, after an interruption linked to the pandemic. of Covid-19, but refers to the symbolism and singular artistic value of this international event on the Mediterranean scene, since it has contributed, for years, to enriching the Mediterranean cinematographic debate.
This ceremony was also marked by the presentation of the feature film jury, chaired by the Ivorian director, Jacques Trabi, with alongside him the Spanish director and actress Mabel Lozano, the Moroccan novelist and film critic, Mohamed Laroussi, and the Moroccan artist-painter, Mohamed El Baz. Added to this are the members of the Critics’ jury, chaired by the Egyptian writer and critic, Amal El Gamal, and composed of the Moroccan researcher and screenwriter, Laila Charadi, a specialist in North African cinema, the Moroccan writer and critic, Adel Sammar, and the vice-president of the Association of Screenwriters of Andalusia, Miguel Angel Parra.
As for film screenings, festival-goers were able to discover, during this opening evening, the French feature film “Another world” by Stéphane Brizé which features a business executive, his wife and his family. , at a time when the professional choices of one are changing the lives of all. Philippe Lemesle and his wife separate, a love damaged by the pressure of work. A successful executive in an industrial group, Philippe no longer knows how to respond to the incoherent injunctions of his management. We wanted him to be a leader yesterday, today we want him to be an executor. He is at the moment when he has to decide on the meaning of his life.
After “The law of the market” and “At war”, Stéphane Brizé therefore continues his unvarnished radiography of the world of work. With, this time, this portrait of an executive subjected to the implacable direction of a conglomerate in full cleaning of its workforce. Economic brutality, humanity of the employees trampled on the ground, the film is rough from the formwork, always carried by the staging with the line of Brizé and the inhabited incarnation of Vincent Lindon.
Finally, let’s remember that the educational program of this 27th edition of the FCMT is placed under the theme “Image education”, and is part of the continuity of the major project of education in cinema, initiated by the Festival for many years. and to which particular attention is paid.
The festival therefore continues its openness to primary, secondary and university educational establishments, and accompanies the education reform project, through the promotion of the culture of the image and cinema as a means of disseminating knowledge and universal human values. During the festival, a series of workshops, training and courses on cinema will be organized for the benefit of students from several establishments in the city of Tetouan, particularly those in rural areas.
TODAY: Mehdi Ouassat