Philippine Film "Leonor Will Never Die" Featured at Salé

International Women's Film Festival in Rabat

Representing Martika Ramirez Escobar at the Salé International Women’s Film Festival was Tin Velasco, Production Manager of Leonor Will Never Die (photo from Rabat PE)

RABAT 22 November 2023 – Martika Ramirez Escobar’s Leonor Will Never Die was featured as the official Philippine entry to the 16th Edition of the Salé International Women’s Film Festival (Festival international du film de femmes de Salé, FIFFS) held from 13 to 18 November 2023 in Salé, which is the sister city of Rabat.

The film, which is Escobar’s directorial debut, tells about the transport of a retired screenwriter of Filipino action films Leonor Reyes from reality into the story of one of her own unfinished scripts. After a freak accident that left her unconscious, lead character Leonor finds herself magically interacting with her script’s heroes and villains traveling through her script’s increasingly surreal episodes.

Prior to joining the FIFFS, the film was featured in twenty-four (24) international film festivals in 2022 including the Sundance Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, Vancouver International Film Festival, Edinburgh International Film Festival, Singapore International Film Festival, Thessaloniki Film Festival, to name a few. The film, which took about eight years to complete, received the World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.

Established in 2004, the FIFFS is an annual film festival held in Salé, Morocco under the patronage of King Mohammed VI which aims to promote and highlight women’s contribution to cinema. The festival is also an opportunity for women filmmakers from different parts of the world to exchange their views on issues related to the film industry, share their experiences and expertise, and to raise awareness on the problems encountered not only by women filmmakers but by women in general through thought-provoking documentaries and feature films.

This year’s edition featured documentaries from Denmark, France, Germany and Morocco and feature films from entries from Hong Kong, the US, Morocco, Hungary, Mexico, Georgia, Switzerland, Canada, France, Burkina Faso, Benin, Germany, Italy, and the Philippines.

Leonor Will Never Die is the first Filipino film featured in an international film festival in Morocco since the reopening of the Philippine Embassy in Rabat in 2020. END

Philippine Embassy personnel with film Production Manager Tin Velasco and FIFFS organizers (photo from Rabat PE)

For more information, visit https://rabatpe.dfa.gov.ph/,  https://www.facebook.com/PHinMorocco/  or https://twitter.com/PHLinMorocco