09/11/2012 - The Mediterranean Film Festival’s cast includes Lubna Azabal, Nabil Ayouch, Faouzi Bensaïdi, Nadia El Fani, Serge Riaboukine, and Branko Schmidt

The 12th Mediterranean Film Festival kicked off in style last night in Brussels. At the Bozar, it was a full house for the screening of Turkish-born director Fernand Ozpetek’s Magnifica Presenza [+see also:
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film profile] (photo), a supernatural comedy about a troupe of ghostly actors from the 1940s in today’s lively Rome.

The festival, an ideal venue for cultural exchange, thus opened with a great homage to cinema and actors. And it was an actress who took centre stage at the event last night, as Lubna Azabal is this year's guest of honour at the festival, one that she values as she was a member of its jury in 2002. This year, the jury brings together a great selection of Belgian and international personalities: French actor Serge Riaboukine (recently in Nicolas Provost’s L’Envahisseur [+see also:
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making of
film profile]), young Belgian actors Christelle Cornil (Miles from Anywhere [+see also:
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interview: Pierre Duculot
film profile]) and Fabrizio Rongione (discovered by the Dardenne brothers, and now back working on his one-man-show On vit peu mais on meurt longtemps, lit. “We live little but die for a long time”), Italian actor Stefano Cassetti (Love Like Poison [+see also:
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film profile], Roberto Succo), director and actor Faouzi Bensaïdi (whose last film Death For Sale [+see also:
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interview: Faouzi Bensaïdi
film profile] won the Cineuropa Prize at the last Brussels Film Festival), French director Philippe Faucon (The Betrayal [+see also:
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film profile], La Désintégration [+see also:
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film profile]), and finally young Lebanese filmmaker Dima el Hoor (Every Day is a Holiday [+see also:
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They might perhaps have the chance to cross paths with some of the many guests attending the festival to present their films. In the official competition, we are notably expecting Moroccan director Nabil Ayouch, the director of God’s Horses [+see also:
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interview: Nabil Ayouch
film profile] (discovered in Cannes), Daniele Ciprì for It Was the Son [+see also:
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film profile] (Italy), Branko Schmidt for the fiendish Vegetarian Cannibal [+see also:
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film profile] (Croatia), Srjdan Dragojevic for Parade [+see also:
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film profile] (co-produced by Serbia, Croatia, Macedonia, and Slovenia), and Elie Wajeman for Alyah [+see also:
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film profile] (France). Documentary filmmakers Chergui Kharroubi, Luca Ragazzi, and Nadia El Fani are also expected to attend. It all makes for a dense and varied programme!

(Translated from French)