After the first edition, which was held a few days after the September 11 attacks and crowned Inch' Allah Sunday of Yamina Benguigui, Marrakech accomodates the second edition of the International Film Festival under the high patronage of the king Mohammed VI. 
From the 18 to September 22, the Marrakech opens its doors with film directors, actors, producers, distributors and journalists of the whole world to share their experiments and to present their Movies.

Designed to be the African version of Cannes Festival, the festival is also poised to become a major annual event highlighting the values of openness and tolerance and a space of encounters and dialogue among various artistic and cultural trends.
Leading Hollywood film directors Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola will be guests of honour and Scorsese will receive a medal from King of Morocco Mohamed VI. 
Also slated for Marrakech tributes are David Lynch, Moroccan actor Hassan El Joundi and Indian film (Lagaan) produced by Aamir Khan. 

The festival further schedules two colloquia on "powers and responsibilities of cinema," " Based on three principles - democracy, propaganda and subversion - the questions will turn around Cinema as an art for freedom, Cinema as a mirror for world violence and the participants include Moroccan writers Tahar Ben Jelloun and Abdellatif Laâbi, French writer and philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, Maurice Druon (Académie Française) and Reverend Jean-Michel Di Falco (Bishop of Paris).

This year, ten feature films will be in competition and the jury will be presided over by legendary French actress Jean Moreau.
The jury of the short-movie contest will be chaired by Tunisian movie director Moufida Tlatli while Yamina Benguigui chairs the jury of a special contest for the best movie of the south.

The films in competition will be shown in three theaters, the Cinema Colisee, the Rif, and the Saada. Films will also be shown to a large audience in front of the El Badii Palace in the Jemaa El Fna, a large public square designated as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

Morocco, which already hosted the shooting of such renowned movies as Orson Welles' Othello, David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia, and Scorcese's Kundun, wants to promote its beautiful scenery and landscape to attract more international movie productions. At the same time, efforts are made to develop Morocco's own motion picture industry.