The Moroccan government is launching construction of a major new film production hub called the International Cinema City in Ouarzazate in southern Morocco know to Hollywood directors as the perfect set for epics such as Ridley Scott‘s “Gladiator 2.”
The flagship project, led by Morocco’s Ministry of Youth, Culture and Communication, officially kicked off on June 27 on a 24-acre site located at the main entrance of Ouarzazate, with direct access to the city’s National Road 9 (RN9) and Mohammed V Avenue.
Conceived as a one-stop-shop filming facility, the new Moroccan studio complex between the Atlas Mountains and the Sahara “will offer an integrated ecosystem covering the full film production value chain, including production, post-production, outdoor shooting, innovation, training, distribution, administrative services, and accommodations,” according to a statement. The statement quantified the Moroccan government’s investment in the Ouarzazate cinema city at 240 million Moroccan Dirhams, which is more than $25 million.
The Ouarzazate cinema city will feature a still-unspecified number of state-of-the-art sound stages, post-production labs, editing and screening rooms, plus a space dedicated to immersive technologies and artificial intelligence applied to filmmaking, the statement said.
