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The day after the opening of the Marrakech International Film Festival (FIFM 2025), the jury members of this 22nd edition (running from November 28 to December 6) held a press conference. South Korean director and jury president Bong Joon Ho, accompanied by Hakim Belabbes, Karim Aïnouz, Payman Maadi, Julia Ducournau, Anya Taylor-Joy, Céline Song, and Jenna Ortega, took the opportunity to reflect on the evolution of cinema at a moment when new talents are emerging across the globe.
The members also addressed the drawbacks of artificial intelligence within an industry that has long placed technological progress at the service of human creativity and intercultural dialogue. On this point, Canadian filmmaker Céline Song described AI as «colonizing our planet and our minds». Criticizing the ease with which creation can be reduced to supervising automated processes, she argued for a creative approach rooted in expertise, skill, inventiveness, and lived experience.
For his part, Moroccan director, screenwriter, and filmmaker Hakim Belabbes stressed that AI can never replace the very essence of artistic creation. He emphasized cinema’s nature as a complex journey, a language built on singularities that convey unique perspectives on the world, its cultures, and both lived and imagined experiences.
Pushing the Boundaries of Cinema
Jury president Bong Joon Ho used the occasion to underscore the FIFM’s role as «a meeting place where filmmakers from around the world come together to exchange ideas and celebrate creativity». The festival, he added, is also a space for rising talents who «are redefining storytelling, taking risks, and challenging both form and content».
Echoing these remarks, Hakim Belabbes highlighted the festival’s contribution to the international visibility of regional cinema, an effort aligned with the capacity of emerging artists to push the boundaries of the seventh art, something automated tools are unable to fully emulate.
In this respect, all jury members reaffirmed their commitment to FIFM 2025, which brings together a wide range of cinematic visions. Their mission is to evaluate the 14 feature films in competition according to the originality they display, films marked by boldness and enthusiasm, and by the artistic, social, and political preoccupations of a new generation making its first or second work.
