Dir: Ginevra Elkann | Drama 90’
In Roses of Marrakech, Ginevra Elkann displays a distinctive visual sensibility, bringing an elegant eye and a keen feel for atmosphere to a story of women at opposite ends of the social spectrum.
Despite their contrasting circumstances, both are lonely, weighed down by problems of different kinds and struggling with the limitations imposed by their lives. The film hints at the common ground beneath these social divisions, suggesting that privilege offers no guarantee of emotional fulfilment.
The performances are committed, particularly that of Fanny Ardant, who plays an ageing bourgeois French woman living in a fabulous villa surrounded by rose gardens. and whose presence and expressive subtlety lend her character a depth that the screenplay struggles to sustain.
Best known for Locarno title Magari Elkann has clearly an eye for images and a sensitivity to the emotional lives of her protagonists, but the narrative is simply too flimsy to carry our interest. The characters’ dilemmas are sketched rather than fully developed, and the dramatic possibilities of their contrasting worlds remain frustratingly unexplored.
Ultimately, The Roses of Marrakech is more successful visually than dramatically: a film with style, atmosphere and capable performances, but insufficient substance to make its story resonate.
PREMIERING AT ROME FILM FESTIVAL 2026