Meknès, a great site of Moroccan History and Culture, welcomes from 26 October to 3 November1991, the most important national audiovisual event concerned with Art Cinema. The attendance this year, of film-makers from Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Mauritania will contribute, I am sure, to make out of this Festival a rich and accomplished one.

This gathering will be at the same time, a festival for recognized motion picture and a forum geared to reflection, projects and debate amongst artists, professional and media representatives.

While the new Millennium is pointing out in the horizon, the multiplicity of the image is now one of the main vectors in the world we are living in.

Owing to their strategic importance, education and culture will be more and more based on cinema and television.

It belongs therefore to artists and creators, to take account of such data to reassert the cultural future of the MOROCCAN KINGDOM and THE ARAB MAGHREB UNION.

Better than any one else, His Majesty King Hassan II, may God give him glory, has defined the future in expressing this deep thought in his book “ the challenge”, and I quote:

“Very aware of what is represented by the cinema and television in educating the youth, we deplore the mediocrity, the hated taste, and the prejudice made by some programmes. However, we would not mix Cinema Art and the film industry The setting up of such industry is under study in Morocco, but we should go step by step and prioritize our objectives”