In a bid to find a larger market for Egyptian and Arab films and in search of greater production potential, a seminar was held March 10 on the sidelines of the Arab and European Film Festival, which took place March 5-11, in Sharm el-Sheikh. The seminar was titled “Arab-European co-productions," and it discussed the possibility of Arab and European directors co-producing films.

The seminar was moderated by Egyptian film critic Nader Adly and included Egyptian film critic Magda Wassef, who is also the head of the Luxor Egyptian and European Film Festival; Egyptian film critic and director of the Kuwait Cinema Club Imad al-Nuwairi; Lebanese actress Madeleine Tabar; Algerian film critic Abdelkrim Kadri; Jordanian director Darine Salam; Tunisian writer, director, film producer and playwright Lotfi Achour; and Tunisian actress Anisa Dawood.

Before the seminar kicked off, Adly said a few words about how the Moroccan film industry had been in a miserable state 10 years ago, but since then, film production increased and Morocco has been producing about 15 films per year.

He explained that the Moroccan state has played a major role in this growth, as local films are funded by the revenues Morocco receives from foreign productions filmed in the country. In addition, the Moroccan Cinema Center contributed to the increase of film productions in the kingdom, providing about half of the funds needed to produce films, some of which are Moroccan while others are produced in partnership with other countries such as France and Spain.