The second edition of the Fez Film Festival, an initiative of the French Institute, will focus from 1 to 3 June on film noir, a genre or cinematic movement born in the 30s that continues today to tackle the dark areas of society.

Through the screening of a selection of feature films from 1932 to 2011, the French Institute seeks to shed light on this genre which is above all "a reflection of a part of society, that of gangsters, the underprivileged, settling of scores, injustices, violence, and all sorts of more or less confessable adventures".

Initiated in partnership with the Soleil de Fès Association, the Festival is also an attempt to "highlight this shadow part buried in everyone", but also a questioning of despair and pessimism, essential characteristics of film noir.

After each screening session, critics, professionals, or simple film buffs will debate the different conceptions of film noir, which cannot be only and simply equated with detective films, the aesthetic and thematic evolution of this cinematic genre, and its place today on the map of the seventh art.

The Festival's programming will begin with the screening, on the first day, of the Moroccan film "Death for Sale" by Faouzi Bensaidi, which was a great success upon its release in theatres in 2011, before diving back to the very sources of film noir with "Scarface" by Howard Hawks, released in 1932 in the United States, after two years of censorship.

The Festival will then continue with the screening of the Chinese feature film "The Killer" by John Woo (1989), the Japanese "Hana-Bi" (Fireworks) by Takeshi Kitano (1997), the American "The Yards" by James Gray (2000), and finally the Australian "Animal Kingdom" by David Michod (2010). The latter won the award for best performance at the tenth edition of the Marrakech International Film Festival (FIFM).

The passion for the seventh art should, moreover, continue during the month of June, with, from the 6th of the month, the screening of the feature film "Intouchables", a great French success of 2011 by Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache, before closing the month with "The Giants", a comedy-drama directed in 2011 by the Belgian Bouli Lanners.