La Dolce Vita à Mogador: When Italian Cinema Meets the Soul of Essaouira

In the salted breeze of the Atlantic, where seagulls trace lazy circles above the ochre ramparts of Essaouira, something magical is about to unfold. From April 23 to 26, 2025, this storied Moroccan port city will host the third edition of La Dolce Vita à Mogador, a cinematic homage to Italy’s enduring allure and cultural resonance.

More than just a film festival, La Dolce Vita à Mogador is a celebration of artistry, womanhood, and the quiet power of cultural exchange. Organized by the Association Essaouira Mogador—visionaries behind the iconic Gnaoua World Music Festival—with the support of Morocco’s Ministry of Culture and the Italian Embassy, this event is shaping up to be a jewel in the international festival circuit.

Feminine Frames: Cinema Through Her Eyes

This year’s edition is unapologetically feminine. With women taking center stage in the selection, the festival offers not only films about women, but films that are through them—crafted, inspired, and nuanced by the female gaze. Yvonne Sciò’s documentary Womeness will lead the charge. A tender, evocative mosaic of five remarkable women—Dacia Maraini, Emma Bonino, Sussan Deyhim, Tomaso Binga, and Setsuko Klossowska de Rola—the film contemplates identity, artistry, and resilience with a painterly elegance.

This curatorial choice isn’t just timely—it’s transformative. It echoes a wider movement within global cinema: a shift from mere representation to active redefinition of narratives by women, for women, and about women.

A Cinematic Dialogue Across the Mediterranean

At its core, La Dolce Vita à Mogador is about bridges. Between continents, generations, genres. For the first time, the festival will juxtapose Italian and Moroccan cinema, staging a vibrant conversation between two rich storytelling traditions. Moroccan cinema—ascending with quiet assurance on the global stage—will be represented by three films chosen to reflect its vitality, vision, and generational shift.

This exchange isn’t simply geographical. It is ideological. It positions Essaouira not just as a backdrop, but as a protagonist in a trans-Mediterranean dialogue—a place where cultures don’t clash but converge, where stories echo in shared emotion.

Nurturing the Cinephiles of Tomorrow

While many festivals chase celebrity, La Dolce Vita à Mogador looks inward—to the community, and especially, to its youth. The Établissement d’Épanouissement Artistique et Culturel Hassania 2 will host screenings for 250 schoolchildren each day, complete with age-appropriate guides and film literacy resources. These are not just passive viewings; they are lessons in empathy, imagination, and visual language.

There is also a screenwriting competition—open to young minds—with winning entries given a spotlight. And in a fitting finale, a short film made entirely by students will close the festival. It is both a gesture and a promise: the future of cinema belongs to those we dare to believe in.

Curated with Care, Crafted with Purpose

The artistic direction of Laura Delli Colli, president of Italy’s Union of Film Journalists, and Giorgio Gosetti, seasoned critic and festival curator, brings a refined cinematic eye to Essaouira’s coastal horizon. Their stewardship ensures that this festival remains as intellectually robust as it is emotionally resonant.

Held at the city’s Médiathèque, facing Bab Marrakech, the event is both accessible and immersive. Free to the public, in original versions subtitled in French, it’s cinema as it was meant to be: generous, generous-spirited, and gloriously unfiltered.

The Essence of Essaouira

But perhaps the true magic of La Dolce Vita à Mogador lies not only in its films, but in its setting. Essaouira—windswept, luminous, eternally poetic—offers a canvas worthy of the most lyrical of Italian frames. In its labyrinthine medina, in the rhythm of the waves and the call of the gulls, one can almost hear a Fellini soundtrack playing softly.

Here, the dolce vita is not just Italian. It is Moroccan. It is human. It is shared.

For more information and the full festival program, visit www.dolcevitamogador.com or follow @essaouirafilmfestival on Instagram.