Iconic Moroccan actress Naima Lamcharki will receive a posthumous award at the 21st Marrakech International Film Festival that runs from November 29 to December 7 for her exceptional contributions to Moroccan arts and her impactful overall career.
Lamcharki has been a household name in Moroccan cinema since the 1960s. She passed away on October 5 in her hometown of Casablanca.
She made her big break on the big screen alongside Tayeb Seddiki in movies such as Souheil Ben Barka’s “Blood Wedding” (1977), which was Morocco’s first submission for an international Oscar; Mohamed Abderrahman Tazi’s women’s empowerment drama “Badis” (1989); and, more recently, Mohamed Mouftakir’s “The Fall of Apple Trees,” Lamcharki’s final film role, for which she won the prize for best actress at Sweden’s Malmö Arab Film Festival.
The film festival organizers described Lamcharki as a “true grande dame.” They said, “Her departure leaves a void in the national cultural landscape.”
The festival will also honor two-time Oscar-winning American actor and director Sean Penn and Canadian director David Cronenberg.
Penn obtained his two awards thanks to his work on “Milk” and “Mystic River.” He most recently co-directed the Ukraine documentary “Superpower,” and he will soon be seen in the anthology film “War Through the Eyes of Animals,” whose main protagonists are animals suffering during the terrible Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Cronenberg also boasts a vast bibliography of movies, which Variety magazine described as “edgy.”
These include Videodrome,” “Dead Ringers,” “A History of Violence,” “eXistenZ,” “Cosmopolis,” and “Maps to the Stars,” making home an icon in the horror genre.
“I’ve been hearing for years how wonderful the Marrakech International Film Festival is,” the Canadian moviemaker said in the statement.
“And now the stars have finally aligned, and I am here—not, amazingly, just to experience the festival, but to receive this prestigious and lovely award for my half-century of work. What a delight and what an honor!” Cronenberg said.