Morocco’s Film Industry Sees Decline in 2019, Foreign Productions Drop 17%

The year 2018 was much more prosperous in terms of film productions. We are talking about 22 feature films, 115 short films, 39 television series, 20 TV movies, 125 commercials and 18 documentary-fictions, revealed the CCM, during a press conference, held a few hours before the closing of the 21st edition of the Tangier National Film Festival.

As for foreign production, 22 feature films were shot in Morocco with a budget of more than 265 MDH, a decrease of 17.63% compared to 2018, the report states, adding that 16 foreign television series were also shot in the Kingdom for an investment exceeding 500 MDH.

Similarly, the report states that 743 filming permits were granted to Moroccan productions and 668 to foreign productions filmed in Morocco. As for the number of admissions to cinemas, the report shows 1,883,425 people for an estimated revenue of 92,977,422 MDH, compared to 73,124,217 in 2018.

In the chapter on distinctions, five Moroccan films were ranked in the box office of the top 30 films, regardless of nationality. These are "Messaoud, Saida and Saadane", "Taxi bied", "Cambodia", "They are big and cannot leave the family nest" and "Heist à la marocaine". At the international level, Moroccan cinema also participated in 81 festivals in official competition and 60 festivals with out-of-competition films.

As for the actions taken by the CCM, 75 film events were organized with the support of the Film Festival Organization Support Fund. The CCM, as in 2018, had a stand at the European Film Market, on the sidelines of the Berlin International Film Festival. The CCM has also had a pavilion since 2006 within the international village of the Cannes Film Festival. The objective is to make known, on the one hand, Moroccan cinema and, on the other hand, to promote "the destination Morocco" to foreign film producers.

The biggest achievement of the CCM in 2019 is to have succeeded in digitizing 6,000 minutes of film documents, for a total of 17,500 minutes of digitized film archives.