Right from the outset, the Marrakech International Film Festival declared its aims and staked its claims. Although its official competition makes it a contender to be among the world's major film festivals, the organisers intend to resist the temptation of social frippery and exoticism by ensuring that their event has the calibre of a great intellectual, cultural and professional forum.

The first try in 2001 hit the goal: success. This year we will transform and develop the festival while maintaining our original standards of precision, quality and consistency.

In the first instance, let us take a look at the competition. Its first first screenings of stunning films will be subjected to the critical gaze of a jury that, to our immense honour, is persided over by Jeanne Moreau. The Marrakech Festival is barely two two years old and yet one of the great women of contemporary cinema enthusiastically joins our ranks because, she tells us" at Marrakech, this cinema that has conquered the world will help us to understand and respsct each other". That says it all.

Moufida Tlatli, a great Tunisian film maker and president of the Short film Jury, didn't get it wrong either when stating that this festival will become an event not to be missed for all those who associate cinema with life.

Less than a year after deciding to create it, His Majesty King Mohammed VI, who instigated the festival and who expressed his desire that it be a many-handed entreprise, has indeed been heard by the film industry community, a group that is often demanding and sceptical.

Judging by the passion stirred by the two conferences- notable hipoints in this year's programme-scheduled as a sidebar to the competitions and screenings, His Majesty was not only heard but understood. Its decision to inverstigate the nature of film - art of libertyor mirror of violence - and to invite experts to enlighten us about its future evolution in terms of creation, industry andtechnological innovation, is a clear indication that the festival doesn't inted to take a cosy, safe approach.

By tackling these therms with boldness and responsability, and by outlining several responses, Marrakech won't be a setting for conventional discussion and pat exchanges. Placing confidence in the value of debate and interaction in a domain that it sometimes undermined by doubt, this year the Marrakech International Film Festival will yet again undertake to be as daring and ambitious as the film that is presents. For cinema and Morocco have regulary crossed paths, often for the benefit of this art industry.