HRH Prince Moulay Rachid graciously presided over the inauguration of the Marrakech Graduate School of Visual Arts

Marrakech-Morocco, December 9, 2007 – His Royal Highness Prince Moulay Rachid, President of the Marrakech International Film Festival Foundation, on Sunday officially inaugurated the Kingdom’s first cinema school in Marrakech on the sidelines of the seventh Marrakech International Film Festival (MIFF).

Aiming to empower Moroccan students to meet the challenges of the new millennium, His Royal Highness has consistently been leading advocate and activist of progressive education and He hopes to develop and expand Moroccan budding film industry.

His Royal Highness, who upholds full pace of development in all fields with education receiving great importance, points out that investing in education and job training for youth produces economic growth and sharply reduces poverty.

Speaking on behalf of the students and on his own believes, His Royal Highness expressed his profound gratitude to launch the Marrakech Graduate School of Visual Arts to support the Education for All movement as a necessity of human right.

The program is set up to address the increased professionalism required of the film industry and provide the pace for high-demand training in the field as well as encourage the spread of economic benefits of participation in the film industry.

The total project investment is 60 million DH and was sponsored by the Swiss Foundation Susanna Biederman (80%) and Cadi Ayyad University - Marrakesh (20%).

The overall area of cinema school is 9,000 m2 and will provide space for the cinema of 210 seats, outdoor cinema, two shooting stages, auditorium mixer, recording studio, photo studio and three development laboratories, 20 meeting rooms, exhibition spaces and other dependencies.

The inauguration of the Marrakech Graduate School of Visual Arts (l'Ecole Supérieure des Arts Visuels) was attended by several personalities from the world of cinema and culture, including the famous American director, Martin Scorsese and Melita Toscan Du Plantier.