Hamich Benlarbi’s À la recherche de l’oiseau gris aux rayures vertes is among 24 films shortlisted in the Best Fiction Short Film category. The 45-minute film, which had its world premiere at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival during Directors’ Fortnight, follows Sellam, played by actor Oussama Oussous, as he travels through the Atlas region south of Marrakech in search of a mysterious bird.
Hamich Benlarbi, a Franco-Moroccan screenwriter, director and producer, is a graduate of La Fémis and a recipient of the Lagardère Foundation award. His first feature film, Retour à Bollène, was nominated for the Louis-Delluc Prize. His short film Le Départ won awards at around 20 festivals.
The second Moroccan entry is L’Mina, a documentary short by Franco-Moroccan filmmaker Randa Maaroufi. The film was awarded the Leitz Cine Discovery Prize for Best Short Film at Cannes’ Critics’ Week in June 2025.
Set in Jerada, the former mining city in eastern Morocco, L’Mina examines the informal coal mining that has continued there since the activity was officially halted in 2001. The film recreates the work carried out in the mines using a set designed in collaboration with local residents, who play themselves.
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Maaroufi lives and works in Paris and studied at the School of Fine Arts in Tetouan, the École supérieure d’art et de design d’Angers and Le Fresnoy. Her work explores the staging of bodies in public and intimate spaces, with a particular focus on political approaches to representation, gender and the status of images.
The 2027 César Awards ceremony is scheduled for February 25 at the Olympia in Paris.
