Rigorberto Perezcano’s Northless was the top winner at the ninth edition of the Marrakech International Film Festival held earlier this month. Set in a small Mexican town, the film tells the story of a young man (Harold Torres) waiting for the right time to cross the barbed-wire-strewn border into the United States.
The Jury Prize went to two films: Nabil Ben Yadir's Belgian "coming-of-age" drama Les barons and Charlotte Lim Lay Kuen's Malaysian family drama
My daughter. In the former, three Belgian denizens of Arab background must make tough decisions about their lives and future; in the latter, a teenager has a love-hate relationship with her love-starved mother, who is always going from one romantic liaison to another.
Also, Lotte Verbeek was the best actress for her mysterious young woman who befriends a lonely widower (Stephen Rea) in Urszula Antoniak's Dutch-Irish drama Nothing Personal, while Cyron Melville was voted best actor for his increasingly unbalanced pianist in Morten Giese's Danish drama Love and Rage.
Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami was this year's president of the jury.