After five days of screening feature films and documentaries, the names of the winners of this 3rd edition of the Cinema and Common Memory Festival were revealed last Saturday during the closing evening. The Grand Prix of the festival was awarded to the Moroccan film “Adios Carmen” by Mohamed Amine Benamraoui.

Unanimously by the jury of the “feature films” category, chaired by the former minister and poet Mohamed Achâari, the Jury Prize went to the Turkish film “The Blue Van” by Omer Leventoglu, who was also rewarded for the best female role, Izgi Celik. The Best Male Role Prize was awarded ex aequo to the Moroccan Said Marssi in “Adios Carmen” and the Egyptian Amro Wakid in “Winter of Discontent”. “We met several times. The choice of winners was not difficult. We agreed unanimously on the productions to be awarded,” emphasises Mohamed Achâari. In the documentary category, the jury, chaired by the poet and philosopher Khal Torabully, awarded the Driss Benzekri Grand Prix to the French film “At the Edge of the World” by Claus Drexel and the Documentary Research Prize to the production “Fascism, Inc.” by the Greek Aris Chatzistefanou. Khal Torabully explained that the choice of winners was based on a set of criteria on which all members agreed. As for the scientific commission, chaired by Professor Moussaoui El Ajlaoui, it awarded the commission's Prize to the Moroccan feature film “Adios Carmen” and congratulations to the Egyptian film “Winter of Discontent” by Ibrahim El Batout. The closing evening was also marked by tributes paid to certain Moroccan artists who shone on stage, then on the small and big screens, notably the actresses Saidia Azgoune and Asmae Khamlichi, then the director Hicham Jebbari and the entire team of the series “Le malencontreux”.

Thus ends the 3rd International Cinema and Common Memory Festival, an event that is growing in scale and gaining notoriety over the years. It is an event that augurs well for the promotion of the city of Nador on a cultural and artistic level and which allows an opening onto other horizons of imagination and creativity that only cinema can guarantee. As Mohmed Achâari underlined, “he who protects creativity, protects his strength and his value”.