Bensaidi’s films receive praise in Tetouan

The Mediterranean Cinema Festival in Tetouan continues the activities of its twenty-ninth session, holding seminars and open meetings with professionals of the seventh art and those interested in the cultural field in order to exchange experiences and ideas for the development of Moroccan cinema.

The Cultural Center in Tetouan hosted a symposium entitled “Moroccan Cinema Today… New Breaths and Paths.” This symposium was an opportunity for a group of critics and researchers in the field of cinema to praise the development of Moroccan cinema, unanimously agreeing that it is going through a period of glow and radiance reflected in the crowning of Moroccan productions in international festivals.

The symposium participants also praised the cinema presented by the honored Moroccan director Faouzi Bensaidi during this session, considering it innovative at all levels and having unique artistic and intellectual dimensions that raised the challenge to Moroccan cinematic creativity.

Film critic Mohamed Bakrim said that Bensaidi’s film “The Empty Third” represents a return to addressing aesthetic taste and conscience and mobilizing the intelligence of the audience. Meanwhile, Tunisian film critic Taher Chikhaoui considered that Bensaidi’s cinema is an open cinema that allows for discussion and interpretation, making him today considered one of the most important filmmakers of his generation.

For his part, critic Said Mezouari highlighted, in his intervention, that he seeks to place Faouzi Bensaidi’s cinema within the general context of Moroccan cinema, with the need to pay attention to a cinematic genre that does not receive sufficient attention. It is a documentary that made its presence felt thanks to its output that touches on topics far from the ordinary.

In the same context, Moroccan director Faouzi Bensaidi said, in light of the discussion that opened about his works during the symposium, that he was greatly affected after describing his experience in cinema as one of the most successful and most beautiful experiences in the Moroccan arena, expressing his hopes that he will live up to expectations and be in the best possible way. The level of what was said about him and the level of what is expected of him, and he deserves the praise of critics.

The same speaker continued, in a statement to Hespress, that hearing this praise directly, although it makes him happy, gives him a kind of responsibility and makes him question what he has done and what he must do in the future in order to maintain positive opinions about his artistic career.