Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho will serve as patron of the Marrakech Film Festival’s Atlas Workshops, the festival’s platform for developing film projects from Morocco, the Arab world and Africa. The ninth edition of the workshops runs Nov. 22 to 26 in Marrakech. Mendonça Filho, who directed “The Secret Agent,” will mentor the filmmakers who take part. He told organizers the role gives him a sense of “witnessing, right before my eyes, the birth of new films.” Hearing new ideas and the aspirations of younger filmmakers, he said, also feeds his own work.
The festival has selected 30 projects from 14 countries for this year’s program. Mendonça Filho follows Romanian director Cristian Mungiu and American filmmaker Jeff Nichols in the patron’s role. Both held it in earlier editions. His profile has grown sharply. “The Secret Agent,” a Brazilian political thriller starring Wagner Moura, won best director and best actor at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, and it has carried Mendonça Filho from the art-house circuit toward wider recognition. Marrakech has chosen to put that attention behind its own emerging directors.
The Atlas Workshops are one strand of a wider industry program. Atlas Station supports young Moroccan professionals and short films in post-production. This year it welcomes eight filmmakers chosen from 30 applicants. The Atlas Distribution Meetings bring together roughly 60 professionals from Africa, the Arab world and Europe to build contacts and help films reach new audiences. A separate strand, Atlas Press, supports the development of film criticism. The workshops, Atlas Station and the distribution meetings all take place Nov. 22 to 26, while Atlas Press runs on different dates.
Project development platforms like Atlas matter to filmmakers in regions with limited local financing. Participants present unfinished projects to producers, sales agents and funders, and a respected director’s attention can open doors. Organizers have not named the individual projects selected, and they have not said how Mendonça Filho will split his time between one-on-one sessions and public events. The festival has not announced its main competition lineup or jury for this year’s edition.
