The first Moroccan Film Festival, hosted by the High Atlas Foundation, was a great success, drawing a crowd of 175 people for the opening night film and kick-off reception on Friday, October 29th and nearly 500 people for the following day\u2019s nine feature length films.<\/p>\n
Guests were welcomed on opening night with Moroccan tea and cookies and after the film screening were treated to a selection of Moroccan wines and hors d\u2019oeuvres, all sponsored by the\u00a0Moroccan National Tourist Office<\/a>.\u00a0 Opening remarks included those by Deputy Mayor of New York Stephen Goldsmith, who also read a letter on behalf of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and words of encouragement and praise for the festival delivered by Mohamed Karmoune, General Consul at the Moroccan Consulate in New York.\u00a0 Dr. Yossef Ben-Meir, President of HAF, addressed the audience and reflected on the ten years of HAF\u2019s community-driven development work in Morocco, and presented the organization\u2019s\u00a02011 projects<\/a>.<\/p>\n We were delighted that Ahmed El Maanouni, Director of\u00a0Burned Hearts<\/em>, and Izza G\u00e9nini, Director of the short documentary\u00a0Moussem<\/em>\u00a0joined us on Friday evening to do a Q&A session with guests that was moderated by actress Soumaya Akaaboune, best known for her most recent role in the international hit film\u00a0Green Zone<\/em>.\u00a0 Hakim Belabbes, Director of\u00a0In Pieces<\/em>, and Younes Abouyoub, advisor to\u00a0I love Hip Hop in Morocco<\/em>, were both present on Saturday to do Q&A for their films.<\/p>\n A special thank you to all of the first\u2019s festival partners and sponsors: Le Centre Cin\u00e9matographique Marocain (CCM), Ecole Sup\u00e9rieure des Arts Visuels de Marrakech, Moroccan American Center Cultural Center, Moroccan National Tourist Office, Screen International, Sofitel Hotel New York, Vogue magazine, and Western Union.\u00a0 Please\u00a0view coverage of the festival by 2M\u00a0<\/a>(beginning at minute 15:50).<\/p>\n For the second film festival on October 28th-29th, 2011 HAF is seeking sponsoring support of $100,000 in order to stage another highly memorable and celebratory festival event, bring exposure of Moroccan filmmakers to the United States, and raise awareness and critical support to meet community development needs in Morocco, including in clean drinking water, fruit tree agriculture, women and youth empowerment initiatives, and training in participatory planning and management.<\/p>\n As an event sponsor, you will not only support and be associated with HAF\u2019s development efforts that are national examples of local sustainability in Morocco, but also caring institutions and individuals in the United States and Morocco will recognize your concern and participation.\u00a0 HAF events and projects receive extensive media coverage, including articles in American and Moroccan press, television interviews, such as New York\u2019s WNBC-TV, NY1, and hundreds of electronic distributors operating in the U.S. and Morocco.<\/p>\n To download the invitation to sponsor the 2011 Moroccan Film festival, please click\u00a0here<\/a>.\u00a0 To become a volunteer for the festival event, please write to\u00a0haf@highatlasfoundation.org<\/a><\/span>.\u00a0 We would love to hear from you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The first Moroccan Film Festival, hosted by the High Atlas Foundation, was a great success, drawing a crowd of 175 people for the opening night film and kick-off reception on Friday, October 29th and nearly 500 people for the following day\u2019s nine feature length films. Guests were welcomed on opening night with Moroccan tea and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[46],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-haf.ddev.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2235"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-haf.ddev.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-haf.ddev.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-haf.ddev.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-haf.ddev.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-haf.ddev.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2235\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-haf.ddev.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-haf.ddev.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress-haf.ddev.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}