Maryam Touzani becomes the first Moroccan in Cannes Festival jury

Distinguished Moroccan director Maryam Touzani will be the first Moroccan to serve as a jury member at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival.

Cannes’ official competition jury will be chaired by the Swedish renowned director, Ruben Östlund, and the other members besides Touzani are Denis Ménochet, Brie Larson, Julia Ducournau, Paul Dano, Rungano Nyoni, Atiq Rahimi, and Damián Szifron. 

They will be judging films by Ken Loach, Wim Wenders, Marco Bellocchio, Nanni Moretti, Wes Anderson, Aki Kaurismäki, Hirokazu Kore-Eda, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, and Todd Haynes.

The previous year, Touzani debuted her film “The Blue Caftan” at the festival, which was produced by her famous director husband Nabil Ayouch, also in the running for a prize in the 2022 edition.

This year marks triumphant victories for Morocco in Cannes, as besides the official competition, 3 Moroccan movies previously supported and funded by the Marrakech film festival’s Atlas Workshops initiative will be screened and competing for various accolades.

With “The Mother of all lies” by Asmae El Moudir, “Les Meutes” by Kamal Lazraq, and “Deserts” by the great Faouzi Bensaïdi, it is Morocco’s first time being present at the festival with this many submissions.

Cannes will start on May 16 and end on May 27, with several highly anticipated releases on the program, such as Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the flower moon,” James Mangold’s “Indiana Jones,” shot in Morocco, and The Weeknd and Sam Levinson’s “The Idol.”