Ahmed El Maanouni

Ahmed El Maanouni was born in Casablanca in 1944. His filmography is a rich one and includes some of the most iconic movies in Moroccan cinema such as “Alyam Alyam” (1978), the first Moroccan film to be selected at the Cannes Film Festival. He also directed “Trances” in 1982, which has been a cult film ever since. Restored by the World Cinema Foundation and presented by Martin Scorsese at the 2007 Cannes Classics Festival, it’s the most widely distributed Moroccan film in the world. El Maanouni is also the director of “Les Cœurs brûlés” (2007), which won the Grand Prix at the National Film Festival and received numerous international awards. His documentaries tackle colonial history and its impact on the Moroccan memory. Among them, “Conversation avec Driss Chraïbi” and his documentary trilogy “Les Chemins de la liberté” (2015) stand out in particular. He also runs study groups and teaching programmes in various parts of the world.