Tunisian director Erige Sehiri scooped the Marrakech Film Festival’s top Etoile d’Or prize for her female-led feature Promised Sky over the weekend.
The drama about three Ivorian women living together in the Tunisian capital of Tunis, is Sehiri’s second fiction feature after 2022 Directors’ Fortnight selection Under the Fig Trees.
Promised Sky cast member Deborah Lobe Naney won Best Actress for her performance as a young mother living away from loved ones as she seeks to give them a better future.
The cast also featured Aïssa Maïga, who accompanied Sehiri to Marrakech, as well as Laetitia Ky and Estelle Dogbo.
Talking to Deadline on the red carpet earlier in the festival prior to her win, Sehiri revealed the films were part of a trilogy about women at work in Tunisia, which she plans to complete with a drama set in a luxury hotel in Hammamet.
Promised Sky was among 13 first and second features in the Marrakech’s 2025 competition, with a jury led by Bong Joon Ho and also featuring Anya Taylor-Joy, Jenna Ortega, Celine Song, Karim Aïnouz, Hakim Belabbes, Julia Ducournau, and Payman Maadi.
In other prizes, the Jury Prize went ex æquo to Jihan K’s documentary My Father And Qaddafi and Vladlena Sandu’s Memory.
Oscar Hudson won the Best Directing Prize for Straight Circle, while the Best Actor award went to Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù for his performance in Akinola Davies Jr.’s My Father’s Shadow.
The jury also praised the precision of actors Elliot Tittensor and Luke Tittensor in Oscar Hudson’s Straight Circle, awarding them both a special mention.
The Marrakech Film Festival ran from November 28 to December 6, with highlights including tribute awards for Jodie Foster and Guillermo del Toro, and onstage conversations by Andrew Dominik, Laurence Fishburne, Kleber Mendonça Filho and Jafar Panahi.
This year’s edition also featured its biggest ever industry strand, with the 8th edition of its Atlas Workshop at the heart of professional activities. Some 350 professionals attended the event for meetings around 28 projects.
In the post-production line-up, the top €20,000 prize went ex-aequo to Don’t Let the Sun Go up on Me by Asmae El Moudir, and La Más Dulce by Laïla Marrakchi.
In the Atlas Development category, the top prize of €30,000 went to Mozambique project Chapa 100, directed by Ique Langa.
More than 47,000 spectators attended festival screenings, including 7,000 children and teenagers as part of the Young Audiences and Family program.
