Moroccan cinema and the promotion of culture

Moroccan cinema constitutes an exeption in the otherwise gloomy landscape of Third World cinemas. One of the charecteristics of all these cinemas is that, with private capital so scarce, they would be unable to survive if this was their only financial support. Yet free-trade initiatives discourage supportive financial measures that might come from the state or from third-party public sources. In this context, UNESCO's Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Divesity of Cultural Expressions offers the possibility of encouraging support for cultural expression in situations where the market alloue is insufficient. This paper presents the current, somewhat paradoxical situation of Moroccan cinema and discusses the UNESCO Convention and its applicability to Moroccan cinema, addressing the Convention's strong pointsd and weaknesses and the prospects for Moroccan cinema in this context.