From February 29th until March 4th, the Marrakech Biennale will present a series of talks, panels, and screenings. Higher Atlas, the main exhibition, runs from February 29th until June 3rd. Its vernissage, including special performances, takes place on March 1st at the Théâtre Royal, from 17:00 till 20:00.
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 29
Offical Biennale Welcome and Press Conference
11:00-12:00 | Venue: Riad El Fenn
with Vanessa Branson, Carson Chan and Nadim Samman, Omar Berrada and Alan Yentob
I Am Slave
14:30-16:30 | Venue: ESAV
Screening of I am Slave followed by a discussion with the director Gabriel Range and lead actress Lubna Azabal
Artistic identities in Africa and the Middle East
14:30-16:30 | Venue: Riad Denise Masson
with Aziz Daki (art historian, director of the Atelier 21 in Casablanca), Khadija El Bennaoui (coordinator of Young Arab Theater Fund and Art Moves Africa and Board member of Arterial Network), Catherine David (independent curator , Director of Contemporary Arab Representations), Simon Njami (curator and art critic, co-founder of Revue Noire), Hamza Serafi (founder ofAthr Gallery, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia)
A Spring of images?
17:00-18:30 | Venue: Riad Denise Masson
WJT Mitchell (theorist of art, media and literature, University of Chicago, and editor of the journal Critical Inquiry), in conversation with Rasha Salti (independent art critic, curator and film programmer) and Omar Berrada (director of the Dar al-Ma’mûn library)
THURSDAY, MARCH 1
Art and Public Space
10:00 | Venue: Riad Denise Masson
with Negar Azimi (editor of Bidoun magazine, member of the Arab Image Foundation), Hassan Darsi (artist, co-founder of La Source du lion), Abderrahim Kassou (architect, President of Casamémoire & General Coordinator of Les Abattoirs de Casablanca), Katarzyna Pieprzak (Professor at Williams College, author of Imagined Museums: Art and Modernity in Postcolonial Morocco), Driss Ksikès (director of the CESEM research center, and its magazine Economia, and co-founder of DABATEATR in Rabat)
Nitty Gritty
10:30 | Venue: ESAV
What do you really need to do to survive as a great TV producer?
Masterclass with Michael Souvignier, a prolific producer of TV series in Germany, Michael gives us an insight into his extensive experience and know-how.
Reading Tips
14:30 | Venue: Riad El Fenn
Most Writers are avid readers. Readers of a very particular, productive kind. Four writers will delve into their readers’ memories, and share thoughts about books they hold dear, and how they read them.
With Latifa Baqa, Ali Benmakhlouf, Geoff Dyer, Abderrahim Elkhassar, moderated by Omar Berrada
Higher Atlas Exhibition Opening
17:00-20:00 | Venue: Theatre Royal
FRIDAY, MARCH 2
5×15
10:30-12:30 | Venue: Riad El Fenn
Five fantastic speakers tell us about their passion, obsession or great achievement with just two rules: no scripts and only fifteen minutes each.
With Touria Binebine, Rian Malan, Ben Okri, Ouidad Tebaâ, Ruby Wax, moderated by Rosie Boycott
Blowing in the Wind
10:30-12:30 | Venue: ESAV
New Wave from Morroco
Screening The End
Riding the counterculture wave, rising star Hicham Lasri, Morocco’s latest director (and author of Morocco’s first science fiction novel, Stati ©)
Fathers and Sons
14:30-16:00 | Venue: Riad El Fenn
Parent- chidren relations are variously staged in Driss Kiskes’s play Oedipiades, Camille de Toledo’s Hybrid novel Vies Potentielles, and many of Rabia Raihane’s Short Stories, The well-known Psychological dimensions of generational conflict are acquiring, in these revolutionary times, clear political overtones.
With Camille de Toledo, Driss Ksikès, Rabia Raihane, moderated by Juan Asis Palao
Bob Marley – The Reggae Legend
14:00-16:30 | Venue: ESAV
screening and Q&A
Preview screening of Kevin Macdonald’s epic biopic of the late reggae star and Rasta, Bob Marley, followed by a Q&A with Kevin Macdonald and Alan Yentob.
Are you modern?
16:00 | Venue: Riad El Fenn
We have come to identify modernity with the west, and being modern, when you are from elsewhere, has come to mean catching up with the west.
With Khadija Carroll La, Pankaj Mishra, Zahia Rahmani, moderated by Ali Benmakhlouf
1395 Days without Red, Anri Sala screening
17:30-18:30 | Venue: Bank Al-Maghrib
Marrakech Biennale presents, in association with Artangel, the North African premiere of 1395 Days without Red.
Šejla Kamerić and Anri Sala, in collaboration with Ari Benjamin Meyers. 1395 Days without Red was conceived, developed and filmed as a collaborative film project by Šejla Kamerić and Anri Sala. The project has given life to two separate films, which are both being presented at the Biennale.
This presentation was generously supported by Marian Goodman Gallery, and Hauser & Wirth.
A special one-off performance by Matthew Stone and Phoebe Collings-James
23:00-01:00 | location to be disclosed
Hamam attire required.
SATURDAY, MARCH 3
Ai Weiwei: Without Fear of Favour
10:30-12:00 | Venue: ESAV
Screening of Imagine… Ai Weiwei: Without Fear or Favour, followed by a discussion about this fascinating insight into the artist’s life with the filmmaker Alan Yentob, Sara Wong, board member of Para/Site Art Space in Hong Kong, biennale artist Leung Chi Wo and biennale curator, Carson Chan.
Truthful traitors
11:00-12:30 | Venue: Riad El Fenn
Sometimes betraying your family, or your country, is the only way to be true to yourself. Two subtle writers rise above the simplifications of nation and morality, and give their nuanced, radical, and personal views of the tumultuous legacies of Apartheid in South Africa, and French colonization in Algeria.
With Rian Malan, Zahia Rahmani, moderated by Driss Ksikès
Writing with Images
14:30-16:00 | Venue: Riad El Fenn
Literature and the visual arts are not seperate worlds. Words carry images and pictures are traversed by discourse. The work of Geoff Dyer, who has written extensively on photography and film and the experience of seeing, makes this explicit. A conversation with video artist Mario Pfeifer (who strings images together into visual forms of narration) on literature, art and Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker.
With Geoff Dyer, Mario Pfeifer, moderated by Omar Berrada
Wild and Wonderful Worlds
14:30-15:30 | Venue: Institute Francais
Renowned film critic Mohammed Bakrim presents the work two of Morroco’s celebrated artists in an afternoon double bill.
Lubna Azabal, actress, talks about her extensive and varied work with some of the world’s most influential filmmakers.
Moroccan (short) stories
16:00-17:30 | Venue: Riad El Fenn
The short story is perhaps the most lively literary form in Morocco, and a genre in which women writers have been particularly brilliant and productive. A conversation with Latifa Baqa and Rabia Raihane, two of Morocco’s most talented and respected short story writers.
With Latifa Baqa, Rabia Raihane, moderated by Ayoub El Mouzaine
Q&A with Faouzi Bensaidi
16:30-17:30 | Venue: Institute Francais
Faouzi Bensaidi writer and director (with clips from Death for Sale, What a Wonderful World, A Thousand Months) discusses Faouzi’s latest hit: Death for Sale and his unstoppable rise.
Cinema Conference: Ali Bemaklouf
18:00 | Venue: ESAV
Philisopher Ali Benmakhlouf presents his conference ‘Is Film the Epic poem of the day?’, discussing the parallels between drama and the epic by analysing the three films: Casablanca, Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much and Godard’s Contempt.
SUNDAY, MARCH 4
Lucky PDF in conversation with Jon Nash
10:30-11:30 | Venue: ESAV
London based Internet art collective discusses their work in relation to Marrakech Biennale artist, Jon Nash’s piece for the biennale. Moderated by biennale curator, Carson Chan.
Partners in Crime
11:45-13:00 | Venue: Riad El Fenn
Husband and wife, Anthony Horowitz and producer Jill Green, chaired by Matthew Bannister.
Prolific writer and author, Horowitz has written numerous successful television series including the Midsomer Murders and Foyle’s War.
Worlds of words
14:30-16:00 | Venue: Riad El Fenn
Out of a deep sense of the loss inscribed in the heart of life, writers build worlds made of words, where inner drive and outer reality may be reconciled. In Ben Okri’s and Abderrahim Elkhassar’s poetic worlds, man is a storyteller in close touch with the tales of the land, with his natural environment and the forgotten teachings of history.
With Abderrahim Elkhassar, Ben Okri, moderated by Pankaj Mishra
L’Amante Du Rif
14:30-15:30 | Venue: ESAV
New Wave from Morroco
Screening of L’Amante du Rif and Q&A with Director Narjiss Nejjar and producer Lamia Chraibi with Mohammed Bakrim
Narjiss Nejjar’s third feature follows Aya, daydreaming of love. Her cousin, a film student in France, shows up one day with her handheld camera and a videotape of Carmen, Bizet’s famous opera. Aya instantly identifies with the free-spirited Carmen and dreams up a Prince Charming for herself. Her imaginationquicly merges with the reality of her two brothers, who work for a major drug trafficker, known as ‘The Baron’. When their paths collide one morning, Aya’s life gradually begins its descent into catastrophe.
1395 Days without Red, Šejla Kamerić screening
17:30-18:30 | Venue: Bank Al-Maghrib
Marrakech Biennale presents, in association with Artangel, the North African premiere of 1395 Days without Red.
Šejla Kamerić and Anri Sala, in collaboration with Ari Benjamin Meyers. 1395 Days without Red was conceived, developed and filmed as a collaborative film project by Šejla Kamerić and Anri Sala. The project has given life to two separate films, which are both being presented at the Biennale.
This presentation was generously supported by Marian Goodman Gallery, and Hauser & Wirth.
