Rising Up at Night (Tongosa), Feathers of a Father and Among Us (Parmi nous) awarded at the Atlas Workshops 2020

The Marrakech International Film Festival has concluded the third edition of the Atlas Workshops, with the support of Netflix. The 2020 edition of the Atlas Workshops took place online from 30 November to 3 December and brought together 300 international professionals around a selection of 23 projects in development and films in production or post-production, representing a new generation of Moroccan, African and Arab filmmakers.

The second annual ArteKino International Prize, awarded by the Franco-German channel Arte to a project in development, went to AMONG US by Sofia Alaoui (Morocco) produced by Margaux Lorier.

The jury of the 2020 Atlas Prizes for Post-Production, whose members were photographer and filmmaker Tala Hadid, Visions du réel artistic director Emilie Bujès and Luxbox sales agent Hédi Zardi, awarded prizes to the films RISING UP AT NIGHT (Tongosa) by Nelson Makengo (Democratic Republic of the Congo) produced by Rosa Spaliviero and Dada Kahindo and FEATHERS OF A FATHER by Omar El Zohairy (Egypt) produced by Juliette Lepoutre and Pierre Menahem.

The Workshops’ participants attended three panels, the first of which consisted of Franco-Senegalese director Alain Gomis in conversation with cinematographer Céline Bozon, during which the two discussed their collaboration on Gomis’s Félicité.

Moroccan professionals profited from individual consultation sessions as part of the Atlas Station, a new programme launched this year in collaboration with DOX BOX, Powered by Dox Garage. In parallel, six Moroccan projects in development were presented in the Atlas Close-Ups section.

Ten projects in development and seven films in production or post-production benefited from consultation with fourteen international experts, before being presented as part of a co-production market, as a result of which more than 350 meetings between filmmakers and professionals were conducted.