Building an Alternative Distribution Network for Moroccan Cinema: Online Audiences, Festival Networks and Transnational Talent Development

The project builds on unplanned opportunities for impact and engagement activities beyond academia that have emerged during the AHRC-funded Transnational Moroccan Cinema research project.

It aims to provide a greater visibility to Moroccan cinema by bringing three artistically innovative but little-known Moroccan films (one narrative feature, one documentary feature and one short film) to the attention of a diverse range of audiences in Morocco, the UK and internationally (via online distribution). This will be achieved by working with film archives and Moroccan filmmakers or producers to locate the films, secure the rights to screen them and then work with specialists in digital restoration as well as subtitlers to produce a high-quality digital cinema package (DCP) of each films. The films will then be launched across the network of four UK film festivals specialising in African or Arab cinema and at two festivals in Morocco before being made available for free online for a period of 12 months. Using a group of online 'influencers' to bring these films to the attention of a transnational audience online, the intention is to reach as wide and diverse an audience as possible, not just researchers and cinephiles who may already be aware of these films and filmmakers.

In essence, this project is a response to the challenge laid down by filmmaker and critic Mark Cousins for researchers, translators and film archivists to make significant but little known films from across the world more visible to as wide an audience as possible.

Disseminating these films to an online audience will therefore enhance the understanding and appreciation of Moroccan cinema more generally. However, this project also focuses on how the wider recognition of these films can act as a catalyst for a series of more targeted initiatives. A second stage of this project will thus build on the visibility given to these lost classics of Moroccan cinema in order to:

(a) allow the films to be used as a focal point for emerging Moroccan filmmakers to better understand their own film history and how such an understanding can inform and enhance their own filmmaking

(b) offer a space for encounter between film schools in Morocco and abroad (more specifically the UK) that can develop collaboration, networking, training and a sharing of knowledge in what might be described as a process of transnational talent development for emerging Moroccan filmmakers

(c) encourage new initiatives and collaboration between the film industry, festival organisers, and policy makers in Morocco and the UK relating to international co-production and new strategies for distribution

(d) produce a video essay inspired by the three digitally restored Moroccan films that offers an innovative way of thinking about these films will bring the films to the attention of cinephiles, researchers and students of world cinema, who may be aware of their existence, and the diversity of Moroccan cinema more generally.

The project will benefit the following groups in the following ways:

1. Online and film festival audiences (researchers, cinephiles, the general public) will discover artistically important Moroccan films and thus gain a greater insight into the Moroccan cinema as well as its significance to African and World cinema.

2. Festival programmers and international distributors will gain a greater appreciation of the diversity of Moroccan cinema that could inform their subsequent consideration of Moroccan cinema for inclusion in festival programming and theatrical distribution. The project also encourages programmers and distributors to explore alternative online distribution strategies.

3. Emerging Moroccan filmmakers will benefit from a deeper understanding of Moroccan film history, which can inform and enhance their own filmmaking. They will also benefit from workshops with tutors and staff from the London Film School (LFS) at the FIDEC festival - gaining valuable support and feedback to help them develop their own film projects as well as building a network of international contacts within the film industry that will help advance their own careers and thus benefit the development and international visibility of Moroccan cinema more generally.

4. LFS staff and tutors will also benefit from this cross-cultural exchange with emerging Moroccan filmmakers, staff and students at Abdelmalek Essaadi University, Tetouan, as part of the FIDEC festival. They will expand their knowledge of Moroccan film history and gain cultural insights, as well as establishing a new network of creative collaborators from Moroccan/African cinema.

4. The film practice programmes based in the arts faculty at Abdelmalek Essaadi University Tetouan, will benefit from the advice and support from the London Film School in preparing their application to to CILECT (the international association of film and television schools).

5. National screen agencies such as the CCM in Morocco and the BFI in the UK and film archivists can learn from the project's innovative approach to widening access to classics of world cinema online (this also includes the video essay inspired by the three restored films that will be produced as part of the project).

6. Film archives and researchers with a specific interest in Moroccan/African/Arab cinema will benefit from high-quality digital copies of the three Moroccan films being made available in film archives.

7. Directors and producers (the rights holders of the selected Moroccan films) will be presented with DCP copies of their films. As the custodians of the DCP (subtitled in English) they will be able to present the film at a wide range of international film festivals as well as benefiting from other commercial and educational screening opportunities for their film.

8. Students and staff at both the University of Exeter and Abdelmalek Essaadi University Tetouan will gain valuable training and vocational experience from their collaboration in subtitling the three Moroccan films.