Hiam Abbass (“Succession”), Abderrahmane Sissako (“Black Tea”), Zar Amir Ebrahimi (“Holy Spider”), Adam Bessa (“Ghost Path”), Yumna Marwan (“The Veil”) and “Anatomy of a Fall” producer Marie-Ange Luciani will be part of “The Bikeriders” director Jeff Nichols as mentors at this yr’s Atlas Workshops.
Working from Dec. 1 – 5 as a part of the Marrakech Movie Competition, this seventh version will greater than double in period, welcoming the filmmakers and producers behind 27 tasks for an additional day of in-person workshops after 4 days of on-line session earlier this month. By the point the filmmakers hit the bottom for pitches in Marrakech, they’ve benefited from co-production panels, acquisition and distribution pattern evaluation, inexperienced manufacturing teaching and displays from worldwide movie funds and A-list festivals.
“We’re creating a brand new dynamic,” says Atlas Workshops director Hédi Zardi. “As a way to help and make recognized a younger technology – to get them into festivals and onto the world stage – we’ve to help them at each stage and be there for them at completely different steps.”
As a part of this yr’s expanded program, the workshops will welcome 32 trade consultants and audio system, lots of them pulled from Marrakech invitees.
“We’ve greater than doubled the quantity of consultants,” says Zardi. “As a result of we wish to have larger porosity with the general pageant, permitting extra expertise to take part. These are all producers and administrators and actors who’ve been via the identical journey, and who can hopefully act as inspiration.”
This version will even place a brand new emphasis on the artistic course of, internet hosting performing labs with acclaimed stars in to order assist the filmmakers higher hone their characters and dialogue whereas connecting attendees with DPs and VFX supervisors for labs devoted to visible dynamics and aesthetic approaches.
“These aren’t simply masterclasses,” says Zardi. “We’re including a brand new day for small group working labs as a result of growing a challenge isn’t simply restricted to manufacturing and script technique — it additionally contains characters, cameras, and particular results, and we actually aspire to supply one thing extra full.”
That extra holistic overview contains viewers design classes for tasks in improvement and advertising workshops for titles in submit.
“Viewers design means reflecting on why we’re making the movie, who the target market is, and the way we wish to inform the story,” Zardi explains. “Contemplating the meant viewers proper from an early stage is essential, because it helps align the challenge with potential real-life viewers. And for these in post-production, we’ve added a post-design session to supply filmmakers with the fitting instruments and methods to raised promote their work.”
Zardi and Marrakech inventive director Remi Bonhomme have additionally invited two-dozen worldwide distributors as a lot to spur acquisition as to provide workshop contributors a extra in-depth understanding of the panorama.
“Whereas earlier than we solely evoked questions of circulation and distribution in a theoretical means,” says Zardi. “Now we actually wished to anchor that considering within the present market state of affairs so to make it rather more concrete.”
Throughout the pageant panorama, Atlas alumni are on a really banner run.
After Atlas supported movies “The Mom of All Lies,” “Hounds” and “Bye Bye Tiberias” took dwelling the highest prizes on the 2023 Marrakech Movie Competition — all of them arriving on the pageant stage following premieres in Cannes and Venice — the trade program can now boast a whopping 12 workshop alumni on this yr’s Marrakech lineup. Amongst them are Meryam Joobeur’s “Who Do I Belong To” and Mo Harawe’s “The Village Subsequent to Paradise” — the 2 winners of final yr’s post-production prizes that might go on to respective premieres in Berlin and Cannes.
Wanting over this newest crop, Zardi believes that related fortune will favor the daring.
“These are all robust human journeys stuffed with empathy and powered by nice storytelling,” he says. “Every story is cinematic and impactful, spanning completely different genres however delivering daring and significant messages. I feel attendees can be fully absorbed by every pitch, as a result of all of those tasks are bigger than life.”
