Tetouan Mediterranean Film Festival kicks off

The 18th year of the Tetouan Mediterranean Film Festival in Morroco will be held from 24-31 March with a special section titled Cinema and the Arab Spring. The festival also pays tribute to the Syrian revolutionaries. This year 16 countries will participate with 12 feature films, 15 short films and 12 documentaries, produced between 2010 and 2012. The Egyptian film, Cairo Exit, by Hesham Issawi will compete in the feature film section. Several filmmakers and actors will honoured, including French actress Sandrine Bonnaire; Spanish actress, director and scriptwriter, Iciar Bollain; Italian actress Valeria Golino; Egyptian actor Karim Abdel Aziz; Moroccan director Mohamed Ismael; Moroccan actor Mohamed Majd and Tunisian actor, Hichem Rostom. The jury for this year's feature film category will be headed by US artistic director Peter Scarlet, Chairman of the Abu Dhabi festival, former president of the San Francisco and former CEO of the French Cinematheque. The Moroccan filmmaker, Noureddine Lakhmari, the screenwriter for the feature film, Casa Negra, a film noir about Casablanca, will head the short film section jury, while the director of the Madrid International Documentary Festival, Antonio Delgado, will head the documentary film section jury.