Salé, a city across the river from Rabat, opened its 19th International Women's Film Festival this week, continuing a tradition of spotlighting women in Moroccan cinema and questioning the opportunities, funding and roles they receive. For the first time, screenings carry Arabic subtitles, and nine feature films are competing in the fiction category; veteran director Mohammed Abderrahman Tazi became the first man honoured by the festival. Organisers and participants say the event matters as a space for dialogue between male and female filmmakers and as a scouting ground for titles bound for major African festivals such as FESPACO in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso's pan-African film and television festival).