From November 29 to December 7, Marrakech will unfurl a Hollywood-like aura. For the 21st^e edition of its international film festival, Sean Penn, David Cronenberg, Jacob Elordi and Andrew Garfield are expected under the palm trees of the Moroccan city. Festival-goers will be able to discover a selection of 70 films from 32 countries, divided into several sections.

In competition, the 14 first and second features in the running for the Étoile d’or range from melodramas and documentaries to futuristic tales and romantic comedies, and will be judged by a jury presided over by Italian director Luca Guadagnino. The director of Challengers and Call Me By Your Name will be able to call on Iranian director Ali Abbasi (The Apprentice), Indian director Zoya Akhtar, American actress Patricia Arquette, Belgian actress Virginie Efira, Australian actor fromEuphoria and Saltburn The new darling of Generation Z, Jacob Elordi, Spider-Man star Andrew Garfield, Moroccan actress Nadia Kounda, and Argentine director Santiago Mitre.

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They will also have to choose between La Mer au Loina luminous love story about exile and Sudan, rememberan ode to the resistance of Sudanese youth by Moroccan directors Saïd Hamich Benlarbi and Hind Meddebet. The war in Ukraine will be at the heart of Under the Volcano by Damian Kocur . Set in Somalia The Village Next to Paradise by Mo Harawe is about resilience. With the documentary The Wolves Always Come at NightGabrielle Brady explores the consequences of climate change in Mongolia.

Nuggets from Cannes and Mostra

Two filmmakers from Asia portray strong women to tackle the issue of domestic violence in China (Bound in Heaven by Huo Xin) and the courageous struggle of Burmese women workers (Ma-Cry of silence by The Maw Naing). For their first feature films, Muhammed Hamdy and Dania Reymond-Boughenou plunge us into the history of Egypt in Perfumed with Mint and Algeria in the fantasy film Les Tempêtes. RTurkish cinema evangelist, Murat Fıratoğlu, will present One of Those Days When Hemme Diesabout a man determined not to give in to injustice. It’s also about the unspoken, whether it’s a Palestinian family in Haifa in Happy Holidays by Scandar Copti or Argentinian families in The Cottage by Silvina Schnicer. Two dramatic comedies portray a youth in search of a voice. Neo Sora films the political awakening of Japanese high school students in his futuristic film Happyendand Laura Piani signs Jane Austen ruined my life, a funny film about a bookseller’s dashed romantic hopes.

Presented at the Venice Mostra, The Order by Justin Kurzel will open Marrakech. Starring Jude Law as a mustachioed FBI agent, the thriller is based on the true story of Bob Mathews (Nicholas Hoult), leader of a white supremacist gang in the 1980s, who commits hold-ups to finance the revolution. The Moroccan event will host several regional premieres of films that have shone at Cannes, Telluride or Toronto. The tale Bird by Andrea Anorld, the melodrama I’m Still Here by Walter Salles and the closed-door meeting at the Vatican Conclave by Edward Berger, which is expected to dominate the Oscar race, are also on the program. The Festival will also pay tribute to the recently deceased Moroccan actress Naïma Elmcher. As well as Sean Penn and David Cronenberg. With a retrospective at the end.