The distinguished group of thespians and filmmakers from all over the world will join Jury President Jessica Chastain, whose involvement in the chic Moroccan festival was previously announced.
The Marrakech International Film Festival today unveiled the jury of the 20th edition, taking place from November 24th to December 2nd, 2023.
The jury selected will award the Étoile d’Or to one of the 14 first- and second-time feature-length films in the competition dedicated to the discovery of world cinema talents.
For this 20th edition, nine exceptional personalities of world renown make up the jury, which will be chaired by Academy Award-winning US actor and producer Jessica Chastain.
Chastain is joined by Iranian actor Zar Amir, French actor Camille Cottin, Australian actor and director Joel Edgerton, British director Joanna Hogg, US director Dee Rees, Swedish-Egyptian director Tarek Saleh, Swedish actor Alexander Skarsgård and French-Moroccan writer Leïla Slimani.
Together, they will rely on their talent and expertise to judge the 14 films in the Official Competition.
Representing eight countries and five continents, the jury for this 20th edition reflects the heart of the Marrakech International Film Festival, an event that celebrates the diversity of the world’s cinematic creations.
The jury will announce its decisions at the Festival's closing ceremony, scheduled for Saturday, December 2nd, 2023.
Here is a little bit about each of these distinguished personalities in the world cinema landscape:
Jessica Chastain – President
Actor, producer – USA
Over the last decade, Jessica Chastain has established herself as one of Hollywood's greatest performers, with a string of starring roles for renowned directors including Terrence Malick, Kathryn Bigelow, Christopher Nolan or Ridley Scott. She has won numerous awards for her remarkable interpretations of a multitude of characters in front of the camera, including the Academy and Golden Awards for Best Actress. In 2016, Chastain founded Freckle Films, a New York-based production company for film and television projects. She has produced several projects among which The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021), George & Tammy (2022) and lastly, Michel Franco's Memory (2023), in which she stars alongside Peter Sarsgaard. In her recent return to Broadway, Chastain shone in the revival of Henrik Ibsen's classic A Doll's House, which earned her critical and public acclaim.
Zar Amir
Actor, director, producer – Iran, France
Her international career was propelled by her role in Ali Abbasi’s Holy Spider (2022), for which she received the Best Actress Award at the Festival de Cannes, the Best Actress Award at the Seville European Film Festival, and the Robert Award from the Danish Film Academy. As a director, Amir has made short films and documentaries in Iran and Europe. In 2023, she co-directed her first feature-length narrative film, Tatami, in collaboration with Israeli filmmaker Guy Nattiv. A member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, she also founded the Paris-based company Alambic Production. Thanks to her investment in bringing about change for women in Iran, in 2022 Amir was included in the ‘BBC’s 100 Women’ list, an honorary recognition of influential women from around the world.
Camille Cottin
Actor – France
Camille Cottin began her career onstage when she joined the Théâtre du Voyageur troupe. In 2013, she met Eloïse Lang and Noémie Saglio at the birth of the Parisian Bitch project, and took on the title role. They filmed the feature The Parisian Bitch, Princess of Hearts (2015), which earned Cottin a nomination for Best Emerging Actress at the César Awards. She then embarked on projects including Jalil Lespert’s Iris (2016), Noémie Saglio’s Baby Bumps (2017), Éloïse Lang’s Dumped (2018), Vincent Mariette’s Savage (2019), and Sarah Suco’s The Dazzled (2019). In parallel, Cottin pursued an international career, which began in 2016 with Robert Zemeckis's Allied and was followed by Tom McCarthy’s Stillwater (2021), Rachel Lang’s Our Men (2021), Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci (2021), Kenneth Branagh's A Haunting in Venice (2023), and Guy Nattiv's Golda (also 2023).
Joel Edgerton
Actor, director – Australia
Joel Edgerton grew up in Sydney. He attended the Nepean Drama School in western Sydney before transitioning into stage and screen roles. His credits include: Master Gardener (2022), The Green Knight (2021), The King (2019), Gringo (2018), Red Sparrow (2018), Loving (2016), Black Mass (2015), The Great Gatsby (2013), Zero Dark Thirty (2012), Warrior (2011) and also Animal Kingdom (2010). Joel is also a cofounder of the filmmaking collective Bluetongue films. He wrote and directed The Gift in 2015 for which he received a DGA Awards nomination and Boy Erased (2018). As a producer has been behind numerous films including The Stranger, The Square (2017), and The King, which he also co-wrote with David Michôd. Edgerton will star in George Clooney’s upcoming The Boys in the Boat (2023) and in the series Dark Matter (2023), alongside Jennifer Connelly.
Joanna Hogg
Director, screenwriter, producer – United Kingdom
Considered one of the United Kingdom’s leading auteurs, Joanna Hogg is an award-winning filmmaker and a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Her reputation initially took hold with her film Unrelated (2008), which starred a young Tom Hiddleston. She directed two other films with Hiddleston: Archipelago (2010) and Exhibition (2013). Her next film, The Souvenir (2019), had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the World Cinema Dramatic Grand Jury Award. The film stars a host of high-calibre talents, including Tilda Swinton, Tom Burke, Richard Ayoade, and Swinton’s daughter, Honor Swinton Byrne. Hogg’s follow-up, The Souvenir Part II (2021), premiered at the Festival de Cannes and was nominated for the Gotham Award for Best International Feature Film. Her latest film, The Eternal Daughter (2022), starring Swinton, premiered in the Official Competition of the Venice International Film Festival.
Alexander Skarsgård
Actor – Sweden
A Golden Globe, Emmy, and Screen Actors Guild Award winner, Alexander Skarsgård maintains the fearless pursuit of challenging roles. He can be seen in the final season of HBO’s Succession (2018) as Lukas Matsson, a role that has earned him two Emmy nominations. He also can be seen in Brandon Cronenberg’s Infinity Tool (2023) and in Michael Shannon’s Eric Larue (upcoming). Skarsgård also starred in and produced Robert Eggers’s The Northman (2022). In 2017, he won Emmy, Golden Globe, Critics’ Choice, and SAG Awards for his performance in HBO’S Big Little Lies. Other credits include Godzilla vs Kong (2021), The Aftermath (2019), The Kill Team (2019), The Little Drummer Girl (2018), Hold the Dark (2018), The Hummingbird Project (2018), War on Everyone (2016), The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015), The Giver (2014), and HBO’s True Blood (2008 – 2014).
Leïla Slimani
Author – Morocco, France
Born to a Franco-Algerian mother and a Moroccan father, Leïla Slimani is a writer and journalist. A graduate of the Paris Institute of Political Studies, in 2008 she began working for the magazine Jeune Afrique, where she covered subjects relating to North Africa. In 2014, she published Adèle, her first novel, with Éditions Gallimard. The novel won critical acclaim and was nominated for the Prix de Flore. Also published by Gallimard, her second novel, The Perfect Nanny, won the 2016 Prix Goncourt and the 2017 Grand Prix des lectrices Elle. It was adapted for the cinema in 2019 as Perfect Nanny, starring Karin Viard and Leïla Bekhti. Slimani has published two other novels with Gallimard: The Country of Others, which took the Grand Prix de l'héroïne Madame Figaro in 2020; and Regardez-nous danser. She now devotes most of her time to writing, and is also the author of stories, essays, and comics.
Dee Rees
Director – USA
Born and raised in Nashville, Dee Rees is an Academy and Emmy Award-nominated filmmaker known for her unflinching and bold character portrayals. Her first three films, Pariah (2011), Bessie (2015), and Mudbound (2017), earned the writer-director sweeping critical praise and dozens of major awards. Her Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay for Mudbound made her the first ever African American woman nominated in that category. She directed the political thriller The Last Thing He Wanted (2020) starring Anne Hathaway. In 2021, the trailblazing auteur was the first African American woman to have a film included in the prestigious Criterion Collection, when Pariah was selected. Also the director of several television series, Rees wrote and directed episodes of the critically acclaimed Electric Dreams (2018) and Masters of Air (upcoming).
Tarik Saleh
Director, screenwriter, producer – Sweden, Egypt
Of Egyptian origin, director, screenwriter, and producer Tarik Saleh began his career in the mid-1980s as one of Sweden’s most acclaimed graffiti artists. His mural ‘Fascinate' (1989) is the first to be protected by the Swedish state as a work of cultural heritage, and is one of the world’s oldest extant graffiti paintings. In 2001, together with Erik Gandini, Saleh made his co-directorial debut with Sacrificio: Who Betrayed Che Guevara?. The year 2017 saw the premiere of his international breakthrough, The Nile Hilton Incident, which won numerous awards including the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and the Guldbagge Best Film Award. Saleh’s psychological thriller Cairo Conspiracy (or Boy from Heaven, 2022), had its premiere at the Festival de Cannes, where it won the Best Screenplay award as well as the prestigious Prix François Chalais for the film’s “dedication to the values of life affirmation and of journalism.”
For more information, check out the Marrakech International Film Festival website.