 Talents flourish on the Southern coast of the Mediterranean and Moroccan directors and artists are there to remind us. However there is a cruel need for training and education and production and diffusion conditions are still lacking. To make up for this shortage, and in particular for the absence of high level professional training schools for cinema, television, multimedia and graphic design, the ESAV (Superior School of Visual Arts) was created three years ago.
A true centre of excellence, unique in its kind in Africa, the ESAV offers 3 or 5 year courses of study open to young students meaning to work in the communication and audiovisual field. The ESAV is chiefly meant to be an art school focussing on the stances of the artist students. Once they achieve their studies, these young professionals will have a sharper outlook on the world and have elaborated an aesthetical approach.
The ESAV is also a cultural space open to the public and to Marrakesh’s various cultural figures. Viewings are screened each evening followed by animated debates between students, teachers and professionals of the film industry. This place of crossing and exchange also allows to get acquainted with the various artistic practices, thanks to the permanent presence of international artists in residence: graphic designers, plastic artists, choreographers, musicians... It therefore comes as no surprise to find among the school’s sponsors prestigious filmmakers such as Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Martin Scorsese, Abbas Kiarostami and Claude Miller, Wim Wenders and Abderrahmane Sissako.
The ESAV is quite largely supported by the Swiss Foundation Susanna Biedermann. A Partnership was started with the Cadi Ayyad University of Marrakech, the first Moroccan university involved in a private teaching project. ESAV’s educational partners are the INAS of Bruxelles, the Ecole Supérieure d’audiovisuel of Toulouse, the École supérieure des beaux arts in Geneva as well as the London Film School.
The school’s grounds match its artistic and educational ambitions. Conceived by Max Alioth and achieved by Khalil Bennati, it hosts several cinemas, screening and film analysis rooms, two news studios, a mixing auditorium, a recording studio, a photo studio, twenty cutting rooms, a multimedia library, artist and graphic designer studios, exhibition spaces, and a computer room…
The school’s desire for equity and spirit of social interaction translates, among other things, in a grants fund created to support students coming from low income families.
In short,. All the conditions seem to have been grouped, in the same place, to form high flying professionals.
*For more information on ESAV and to download the registration form: www.esavmarrakech.com
Translated from French by Nada Ghorayeb
(08/05/2009)
|
