Agadir festival opens without Younes Moujahid amid journalist committee scandal

The 21st edition of the Cinema and Migration Festival opened this Monday, December 8, in Agadir, but the launch was marked by a notable absence. Younes Moujahid, who heads the Provisional Committee overseeing the festival and the press sector in Morocco, is no longer part of the international jury evaluating the films in competition.

Until recently, Moujahid’s name appeared alongside prominent figures such as Moroccan novelist and diplomat Abdelkader Chaoui, who chairs the jury, Angolan director and screenwriter Dom Pedro, Malagasy director and producer Maéva Ranaívojaona, and Brazilian filmmaker Sérgio Tréfaut. He has now been replaced by Moroccan director and producer Hamid Basket.

This change comes in the wake of a scandal that has shaken the ethics and disciplinary committee chaired by Moujahid, a controversy brought to light by journalist Hamid El Mahdaoui. Since the revelations, those implicated have kept an unusually low profile.