The list of cinema personalities encountering the public at this year’s festival in Morocco also includes Sean Penn and David Cronenberg, in Marrakech to receive their honorary awards, as well as persecuted Iranian helmer Mohammad Rasoulof, Mauritanian filmmaker Abderrahmane Sissako and US director-slash-artist extraordinaire Tim Burton.

When in Marrakech, one of the most fascinating ways to experience the festival is by attending one of their Conversations, which feature renowned personalities from the cinema world. This year’s line up includes all of the above, plus opening night film The Order helmer Justin Kurzel, French filmmaker François Ozon, Brazilian director Walter Salles, whose latest film I’m Still Here is the Brazilian entry to the Oscars (and Golden Globes) race, and British thespian Gemma Arterton.

The line up also features a quartet of Moroccan talents, presenting their first films — Alaa Eddine Aljem, Yasmine Benkiran, Ismaël El Iraki, and Kamal Lazraq in Conversation on December 6th at 11 in the morning.

While in the past these conversations took place inside the Palais des Congrès de Marrakech, this year the venue has changed to the nearby theater within the Meydene cultural center, located in the M Avenue complex. But I hope the length and content of these wonderful talks has remained the same, as the format often includes a cool moderator and a long, comprehensive chat with the filmmakers, actors and cinematic insiders. 

This year’s line up reads like a who’s-who of world cinema personalities, including US filmmaker Tim Burton and Mexican director, writer and producer Alfonso Cuarón — both of whom have already said no to on the ground interviews while in Marrakech and will only talk to the media on the red carpet. As a journalist, I find this practice a bit baffling, but as someone who has witnessed the kind of questions and behavior of some of my colleagues at recent online press junkets, I can’t say I blame them. Although one could argue that press lines before talks or premieres will only increase the amount of silly questions asked, never really getting to the heart of the matter. We are increasingly watering down into a more and more superficial world, where meaningful conversations are a thing of the past and that’s the truth.

That aside, or perhaps because of it, I’m looking forward to all these talks. Tim Burton is a fascinating director, illustrator, screenwriter, producer and most recently made Beetlejuice Beetlejuice which premiered at this year’s Venice Film Festival. His list of credits include Batman and Batman Returns, reinvigorating stop-motion animation with Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse Bride, putting a macabre twist on the grand-scale musical with Sweeney Todd, and creating some of cinema’s most iconic antiheroes like Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands.

Alfonso Cuarón is a five time Academy Award winner, with works like Roma, Gravity, Children of Men — which BTW, after rewatching it while living in London, has left me unable to walk leisurely down Oxford Street — and Y tu mamá también under his belt. In 2022, he produced Alice Rohrwacher's Oscar-nominated short film Le Pupille, making him the second person recognized in seven different Oscar categories. Cuarón's other credits include Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Great Expectations, A Little Princess and his 1991 directorial debut, Sólo con tu pareja. Most recently, he directed Disclaimer, a series for Apple+ that world premiered in Venice and which has critics divided. 

Ava DuVernay’s debut feature film, the historical drama Selma, was the first film directed by a Black woman to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and she is the winner of Emmy, BAFTA, Sundance, Image, and Peabody Awards. DuVernay’s criminal justice documentary, 13th, made her the first Black woman in Academy history nominated as a feature director. Her A Wrinkle in Time became the highest-grossing film directed by a Black woman in the United States. DuVernay’s critically acclaimed series When They See Us, all of whose episodes she wrote, produced and directed, was nominated for sixteen Emmy Awards. Her series Queen Sugar became the longest-running Black family drama in television history.

US director and writer Todd Haynes has tirelessly continued to address questions of gender and identity in his work, including with films such as Safe, which revealed Julianne Moore, Velvet Goldmine where he conjured David Bowie during his Ziggy Stardust period, then paying homage to Douglas Sirk with Far from Heaven. In 2006, Haynes had six actors play Bob Dylan in I’m Not There. He went on to direct the mini-series Mildred Pierce before returning to film with Carol. He then directed Wonderstruck, which had its premiere in the Official Competition at the Cannes Film Festival, followed by Dark Waters, with Mark Ruffalo and Anne Hathaway, his award-winning music documentary The Velvet Underground, and his most recent release, May December, with Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore, which also premiered in competition at the Festival de Cannes.

François Ozon first tried his hand at directing as a teenager, filming his family with his Super 8 camera. In 1990, he enrolled in La Fémis after studying under Éric Rohmer. After making several short films, he made a name for himself with his first feature, the transgressive satire Sitcom, which was followed by the thriller Criminal Lovers; Water Drops on Burning Rocks, adapted from an unpublished play by Rainer Werner Fassbinder; and Under the Sand, starring Charlotte Rampling. The musical comedy 8 Women features eight iconic actors, among them Catherine Deneuve, Danielle Darrieux, and Isabelle Huppert, who together received a Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival. The prolific French director has explored a variety of genres, juggling comedy, film noir, drama, and fantasy. His critical and popular successes include Swimming Pool, Ricky, Potiche, In the House, which won the Golden Shell at the San Sebastián International Film Festival and the European Film Award for Best Screenplay, Young & Beautiful, Frantz, and L'Amant Double.

Iranian independent director, screenwriter, and producer Mohammad Rasoulof’s first film in 2002, The Twilight, was named Best Film at the Fajr Film Festival. He then directed Iron Island, which was selected for the Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival. His next three films won awards in the Un Certain Regard section of Cannes: Best Director for Goodbye, the FIPRESCI Prize for Manuscripts Don't Burn, and the Prix Un Certain Regard for A Man of Integrity. In 2020, he directed There Is No Evil, which won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival. Rasoulof’s latest film, The Seed of the Sacred Fig was selected for the Official Competition at Cannes, where it won both the Special Jury Prize and the FIPRESCI Prize. The film went on to win the Audience Award for Best European Film at the San Sebastián International Film Festival, and is Germany’s official submission for the 2025 Academy Award for Best International Feature Film.

Both Sean Penn and David Cronenberg are receiving honorary awards in Marrakech. Penn is the two-time Academy Award-winning actor, filmmaker, and author who has become an American icon in a career spanning over four decades. He won his first Oscar for Best Actor in 2003 for his searing performance in Clint Eastwood's Mystic River and his second in 2009 for Gus Van Sant's Milk. As a filmmaker, Penn’s esteemed work includes the Academy Award-nominated Into the Wild, Flag Day, The Pledge, The Crossing Guard, and his debut film, The Indian Runner. Established in January 2010 by Penn as the J/P Haitian Relief Organization in the immediate aftermath of the catastrophic Haiti earthquake, the emergency relief nonprofit, renamed Community Organized Relief Effort (CORE), continues to deliver immediate aid to underserved communities across the globe. In Marrakech, audiences will also be able to watch his latest performance in Christie Hall’s Daddio, which sees him in the role of a NY taxi driver, opposite Dakota Johnson.

Cronenberg, on the other hand, has firmly established his reputation as an authentic auteur through his uniquely personal body of work as both a director and writer. Since beginning his career in underground filmmaking and the horror genre, Cronenberg has developed a dramatic oeuvre of outstanding depth and breadth, and consequently has been lauded as one of the world’s most influential directors. His films have earned critical praise and recognition internationally. His films Crash, Spider, A History of Violence, Cosmopolis, Maps to the Stars, Crimes of the Future, and his latest, The Shrouds, were all selected for the Official Competition at Cannes Film Festival, where Crash received the Jury Special Prize.

All Conversations last approximately 60 minutes.