Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Luca Guadagnino, who serves as jury president of the Marrakech Film Festival, spoke in fluent French about his North African heritage during the opening gala ceremony on Friday.
On stage with fellow jurors including Jacob Elordi and Andrew Garfield, Guadagnino delivered a lyrical speech in which he revealed he had a personal bond to Morocco. “My Algerian mother grew up in Casablanca.
She was half-Moroccan, so I am half-Moroccan too,” said Guadagnino, whose jury will watch first and second features in competition during the week-long festival to award the Etoile d’Or Prize. “For me, Marrakech and cinema are the same thing.
The mystery of the image, the power of editing, of contrast, the beauty and devouring force that animates the cinema I love, it embodies Marrakech and Morocco,” the filmmaker continued.
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