Moroccan filmmakers, check your hard drives. If there’s a short film sitting somewhere between “almost finished” and “I swear I’m getting back to it,” Marrakech might have just given you a reason to finally open that project file again.
The Marrakech International Film Festival’s Atlas Workshops are back for their ninth edition, and while applications for the feature films-in-production programme and Atlas Station for Moroccan producers closed on August 31, there’s still one door open: Atlas Station for Moroccan Short Films, with applications running until September 14, 2026.
And unlike the kind of “opportunity” that ends with a certificate, three Instagram stories and some networking, this one actually comes with something useful.
The programme is aimed at Moroccan directors currently working on a short film in production, shooting or post-production that hasn’t premiered yet. You’ll also need to have completed at least one short before this one. So if your film is already doing festival rounds, you’re late. If it’s still being edited at 2AM while you argue with yourself over whether that one shot really needs another color grade, you’re exactly where you need to be.
Selected filmmakers will first take part in five days of online sessions in October before heading to Marrakech for another five days, from November 22 to 26, alongside the Marrakech International Film Festival.
Travel and accommodation are covered, and there’s no fee to apply.
Once there, the programme gets into the part that actually matters: editing and post-production support, guidance around launching the film internationally, meetings with producers, distributors and other industry professionals, access to the co-production market and opportunities to show excerpts of the project to people who could potentially help take it further. Selected projects can also compete for financial awards decided by a jury, although no amounts have been announced.
There’s another reason this particular call is worth paying attention to. Atlas Station is specifically dedicated to Moroccan filmmakers.
The wider Atlas Workshops have become a meeting point for filmmakers from across Africa and the Arab world, meaning projects are usually entering a much bigger regional conversation. Here, the focus comes back home. For a new generation of Moroccan directors trying to move from “I made a short” to “what do I actually do with it now?”, that distinction is pretty important.
Then there’s the application itself.
You’ll need to put together a single PDF in either French or English. Based on the published Atlas requirements, that means getting the usual suspects out of the way: a synopsis, an artistic statement from the director, bios and filmographies, separate motivation letters from the director and producer, visual references, identification details and information about the project’s budget and remaining financing needs.
You’ll also need footage, either a rough cut or selected scenes, and if your film is in Darija or Amazigh, make sure it’s subtitled in French or English.
One thing worth double-checking before hitting send: some of the publicly available requirements are written primarily around the feature-film programme, so don’t build your entire application from a screenshot you found in a WhatsApp group. Go to the Atlas Workshops application page, find the exact requirements for the Moroccan short-film track and work from there.
The deadline is Monday, September 14.
