Muslim father vs. European son road movie is Mar del Plata Film Festival favorite: Ismaël Ferroukhi’s Road to Mecca drama The Great Journey features Mar del Plata’s Best Actor winner Mohamed Majd and Nicolas Cazalé as the head-butting father-son duo.- Ismaël Ferroukhi’s The Great Journey / Le Grand Voyage, a French-Moroccan road movie pitting a hardline Muslim father against his immature, free-spirited European son, was the Best Film and Best Actor (Mohamed Majd) winner at this year’s Mar del Plata Film Festival.
- Emmanuelle Devos and Laura Linney shared the Best Actress prize.
Road movie pitting reactionary Muslim father against ‘Europeanized’ son is Mar del Plata Film Festival winner
On March 20, the French-Moroccan road movie The Great Journey / Le Grand Voyage was awarded the Golden Astor for Best Film at the Mar del Plata International Film Festival, held in the Argentinian beach resort located approximately 400 kilometers south of Buenos Aires.
Directed by Moroccan-born (but French-raised) Ismaël Ferroukhi, The Great Journey follows the France-to-Mecca pilgrimage of a young, carefree Frenchman (Nicolas Cazalé) and his stern, devoutly Muslim Moroccan father, played by Best Actor winner Mohamed Majd.
More Morocco: The Best Director trophy went to Yasmine Kassari for the Belgian-Moroccan The Sleeping Child / L’Enfant endormi, about a Moroccan villager who discovers she’s pregnant after her husband has migrated to Europe.
Emmanuelle Devos & Laura Linney named Best Actresses
Emmanuelle Devos and Laura Linney shared the Best Actress Silver Astor for, respectively, playing a devoted spouse in Frédéric Fonteyne’s French-Belgian drama Gilles’ Wife / La femme de Gilles, and an adulterous one in Dylan Kidd’s U.S.-made P.S.
Bernd Eichinger was given the Best Screenplay Award for the controversial, Hitler-themed German box office hit Downfall / Der Untergang, directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel and starring Bruno Ganz as Der Führer, in addition to Juliane Köhler as Eva Braun, Alexandra Maria Lara as Hitler’s secretary Traudl Junge, Corinna Harfouch as Magda Goebbels, and Ulrich Matthes as Joseph Goebbels.
The award for Best Ibero-American Film went to Brazilian director Lúcia Murat’s Almost Two Brothers / Quase Dois Irmãos, about the unusual friendship between a Rio de Janeiro politician and a drug dealer, while Mohsen Amiryoussefi’s Iranian comedy-drama Bitter Dream, in which an undertaker is reminded of his own mortality, received the Special Jury Prize.
Mar del Plata Film Festival winners
Film: The Great Journey.
Director: Yasmine Kassari, The Sleeping Child.
Actor: Mohamed Majd, The Great Journey.
Actress (tie): Emmanuelle Devos, Gilles’ Wife & Laura Linney, P.S.
Screenplay: Bernd Eichinger, Downfall.
Ibero-American Film: Almost Two Brothers.
Special Jury Prize: Bitter Dream.
“Muslim Father vs. European Son” endnotes
Mar del Plata Film Festival website.
Mohamed Majd and Nicolas Cazalé The Great Journey image: Pyramide Distribution.
“Muslim Father vs. European Son Movie Tops Mar del Plata” last updated in September 2021.