{"id":712080,"date":"2026-02-16T17:42:25","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T14:42:25","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2026-02-16T17:42:25","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T14:42:25","slug":"morocco-is-ready-to-tell-its-own-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/morocco-is-ready-to-tell-its-own-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"Morocco Is Ready to Tell Its Own Stories"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tFor more than a century, international productions have chased Morocco\u2019s light, its chameleon-like geography and its infrastructure \u2014 a place where the Atlas Mountains can stand in for snowcapp<\/a>ed worlds, the Sahara can double for the Middle East and historic cities such as Marrakech and Casablanca slip between eras.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat\u2019s changing \u2014 and what the European Film Market spotlights by selecting Morocco as its 2026 Country in Focus \u2014 is its coming of age as a creative engine, driven by an increasingly export-minded generation of producers.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMorocco has established itself as a dynamic bridge between Africa, the Arab world and Europe. Filmmakers such as Sofia Alaoui, Hicham Lasri, Maryam Touzani and Nabil Ayouch reflect the strength and visibility of contemporary Moroccan cinema, including the rising presence of women directors,\u201d says Berlinale Pro Director Tanja Meissner. \u201cThis combination of creative momentum, industrial capacity and openness to international collaboration makes this the right moment to spotlight Morocco and engage in a broader conversation about its role within global line production.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor Kasbah Films founder Karim Debbagh, Morocco\u2019s presence this year in Berlin is a full-circle moment. \u201cWhen I was 19 years old, I met a German filmmaker from Berlin who was scouting for three films that were based on Paul Bowles\u2019 short stories [Frieder Schlaich\u2019s\u00a0Paul Bowles: Halfmoon<\/em>],\u201d he says. \u201cThis is how I entered the film industry. In 1995, the film premiered in Berlin; I was invited, and it won the Critics\u2019 Prize. Now, after 30 years, I am back in Berlin to present my own project for the first time. It means a lot to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDebbagh\u2019s arc reads like a case study in Morocco\u2019s current evolution: international training, a decisive return to local storytelling and a pragmatic relationship with global production dollars. \u201cI went to the German Film Academy in Ludwigsburg and studied film, and afterwards I tried to make my living in Germany. But then I realized that I am not the one who\u2019s going to tell the stories of Germans. I would rather go back to my country, where I identify with my culture and tell our story.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat he found on returning to Morocco were\u00a0\u201cvery small opportunities for financing films. That\u2019s why I got into the world of production services,\u201d\u00a0he says. In 2005, he created Kasbah Films to support Moroccan and international auteur cinema and to provide executive production services for major foreign productions filmed in Morocco.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAround 2008 was my first American movie with Dan Myrick,\u00a0The Objective<\/em>,\u201d Debbagh says. International TV series<\/a> and films such as\u00a0The Wheel of Time<\/em>,\u00a0Men in Black: International\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0A Hologram for the King<\/em>\u00a0followed. Kasbah Films\u2019 productions include Moroccan films such as\u00a0The Damned Don\u2019t Cry<\/em>\u00a0directed by Fyzal Boulifa, featured in the official selection of the Venice Film Festival in 2022 and the recipient of multiple international prizes;\u00a0Life Suits Me Well<\/em>\u00a0by Al Hadi Ulad Mohand, winner of the grand jury prize at the Tangier National Film Festival in 2022 and selected for Rotterdam in 2021; and\u00a0Traitors\u00a0<\/em>from Sean Gullette, selected at the Marrakech and Tribeca film festivals and awarded at several international festivals.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis year, Debbagh arrives at the Berlinale with projects to pitch, including Eternal Peace<\/em>, directed by Boulifa, Looking For Bacchus, <\/em>directed by Ali Essafi, <\/em>and Interzone, <\/em>a series created by Michael Dreher.<\/em> At Morocco\u2019s Country in Focus programming \u2014 including a Producers\u2019 Spotlight on Feb.\u202f13 \u2014 he and nine other producers are presenting fiction, documentary and series projects intended to reflect contemporary Moroccan storytelling. The Berlinale Series Market Showcase, on Feb. 16, crystallizes one of Morocco\u2019s most strategic shifts: moving from a service destination for other people\u2019s stories to a creator of exportable intellectual property, including series designed from inception for international co-production.<\/p>\n

\n\tTitled \u201cMoroccan Series on the Rise: From Local Success to Global Ambitions,\u201d the event promises an overview of Morocco\u2019s TV fiction landscape spanning drama, comedy and crime. The showcase centers on a core question: What structural shifts are needed to move from local success to globally oriented productions?<\/p>\n

\n\tSalim Cheikh, CEO of broadcaster 2M, is slated to address audience success, production figures and the role of public broadcasters in building a production culture and regulatory framework. Producer Khadija Alami will share insights from her series\u00a0K-1<\/em>, including genre choices, production models and strategies for international visibility. Debbagh will introduce\u00a0Interzone<\/em>\u00a0as an international co-production play. Producer Lamia Chraibi will present an approach rooted in auteur-driven and pan-African projects. Moroccan documentary producer Hind Bensari (475: Break the Silence<\/em>) will moderate.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlami, a pivotal figure in the Moroccan film industry, launched her production services company in 1998. Her career began in 1985, with work on the John Landis film Spies Like Us, starring Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase, and on Elaine May\u2019s Ishtar<\/em>, starring Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman. But an experience tied to her work on George Lucas\u2019 early-1990s television show Young Indiana Jones Chronicles forever changed her life. \u201cI was working as a coordinator on a show and they invited me to Skywalker Ranch,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was mind-blowing and I discovered this whole new world \u2026 the scale is so big compared to what we have in Morocco. [I started thinking] it would be great to have a facility like this [in Morocco].\u201d\u00a0Alami began purchasing land in Ouarzazate, known as the \u201cHollywood of Morocco,\u201d and in 2015 created Oasis Studios for international and domestic productions. She lives between Morocco and Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn 2017, she became a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science<\/a>s \u2014 the first Arab woman producer and the second Moroccan filmmaker to receive the distinction \u2014 and now serves as vice chair of the Academy\u2019s international committee.\u00a0K-1<\/em>\u00a0is also programmed for Berlinale Series Selects screenings on Feb. 16 at CinemaxX and Feb. 17 online. The show follows an elite police unit travel<\/a>ing across Morocco to pursue organized crime while confronting personal struggles that shape them into \u201cdeeply human and empathetic characters.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m using all the things I learned with foreign productions \u2026 to do something Moroccan. I\u2019m the showrunner.\u00a0I had the writing room.\u00a0I had three different directors. It\u2019s a limited series, eight episodes,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tMorocco, by most measures, offers a trifecta for international film, television and streaming productions: financial incentives, skilled technicians, experienced executive producers, and diverse filming locations and casting pools. Structurally, this is supported by a 30\u202fpercent cash rebate for foreign productions, official co-production agreements with numerous partner countries and initiatives such as the Ateliers de l\u2019Atlas, which foster emerging Moroccan and regional filmmakers.<\/p>\n

\n\tThrough the Moroccan Cinema Center, foreign producers can recover up to 30\u202fpercent of eligible in-country expenses, including equipment rental, local crew wages, transportation, logistics, sets and postproduction services. Additional advantages include simplified customs clearance for equipment, symbolic tariffs for filming at historic sites and monuments, VAT exemptions on goods and services acquired in Morocco and air transport rebates from Royal Air Maroc. Government support extends to agencies including the Royal Armed Forces, Royal Moroccan Air Force and Royal Moroccan Navy, alongside streamlined logistics for productions involving military elements or weapons.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlami notes that productions can open temporary foreign accounts for project-specific entities, maintain control over funds and close the account once filming wraps. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to pay taxes here, you don\u2019t pay fringes on crew, you have your own bank account, and you get a 30\u202fpercent cash rebate on the eligible spends in Morocco,\u201d she says. The rebate rose from 20 percent in 2018 to 30 percent three years later and requires shoots of at least 18 days and a minimum in-country spending of 1 million euros ($1.1 million), verified through an audit.<\/p>\n

\n\tKasbah helmed production services on one of the early beneficiaries of the incentive, the Netflix film\u00a0Mosul<\/em>, produced by Joe and Anthony Russo. The company later collaborated on\u00a0Cherry<\/em>, the Russo-directed feature released by Apple TV+, and contributed to major global projects including Amazon\u2019s fantasy series\u00a0The Wheel of Time<\/em>. More recently, its work has extended to upcoming productions such as\u00a0Matchbox<\/em>\u00a0and the in-development sequel\u00a0Lords of War<\/em>, starring Nicolas Cage.<\/p>\n

\n\tBianca Gavin, Vice Studios\u2019 head of production for scripted and chair of the Production Guild of Great Britain, recently worked with Kasbah on 2025\u2019s\u00a0Atomic<\/em>, a five-part action-thriller series created by Gregory Burke for Sky Atlantic.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe did a lot of feasibility studies looking at different countries and Morocco was by far the right place for us. Morocco has exactly the kind of mixed terrain and architecture in a relatively small area to double for many different countries without crossing borders. The skills that [their filmmaking] legacy builds make working in Morocco really attractive, because you know they can achieve complex shoots \u2026 they\u2019ve done it before.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShe added that, in terms of the rebate, \u201conce we had our shooting permit, there\u2019s no ceiling, so you just know that whatever is qualifying, you\u2019ll get back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a major strategic shift, the Moroccan Cinema Center appointed Mohamed Reda Benjelloun as director in July 2025, setting a forward-looking agenda centered on emerging talent and global positioning. \u201cMoroccan cinema has a long, rich and diverse history, and that legacy is extremely important,\u201d he says. \u201cBut from the moment I stepped into this role, I felt it was essential to rebalance our focus toward the future \u2014 toward young and emerging talents, new voices, new forms of writing and innovative narrative formats \u2014 while positioning Moroccan cinema more strongly on the international stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe points to the European Film Market\u2019s selection of 10 project holders \u2014 \u201cthe majority of them women\u201d \u2014 spanning fiction, documentary and series as evidence of an intergenerational shift connecting established professionals with rising creators.<\/p>\n

\n\tBenjelloun believes Morocco is reaching a moment of cinematic maturity: \u201cThis allows us to reclaim our own narratives \u2014 to tell our stories ourselves, to share our realities, imaginations and plural identities with the world, rather than having them defined from the outside.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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For more than a century, international productions have chased Morocco\u2019s light, its chameleon-like geography and its infrastructure \u2014 a place where the Atlas Mountains can stand in for snowcapped worlds, the Sahara can double for the Middle East and historic cities such as Marrakech and Casablanca slip between eras. What\u2019s changing \u2014 and what the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-712080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-mediaa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=712080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712080\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}