Marrakech Laughter: This is the drama that endangered the first edition of the Jamel Debbouze Festival
This Tuesday, July 19, 2022, M6 Le Marrakech du rire is broadcasting. Celebrating the 10th anniversary of his famous festival, Jamal Debbouze has done big things. It must be said that ten years ago, the comedian went through a painful period, preceded by a few weeks, the launch of his project in Morocco…
Back in 2011. At that time, Jamel Debbouze was already the phenomenal comedian we know. The French-Moroccan, very attached to his roots, decides, together with his brother Karim, to embark on a big project: a comedy festival in the heart of Marrakech and transmitted on French TV channels, but not only. If over the years the festival has become one of the unmissable meetings of comedians and other prestigious celebrities vying for places in the audience, the first version of Marrakech du rire took place in a tense context.
video. Le Marrakech du rire 2022: What you need to know about the programme
Attack in the heart of Marrakesh
We are April 28, 2011. A day like any other in Marrakech as spectators, tourists and locals flock to Jamaâ El Fna Square, one of the city’s ocher jewels. But everything changes in a split second. There, in Café Argana, one of the busiest in the square, an attack killed 17 people and wounded 20 others. Morocco is touched in the heart. Ten years later, Jamal Debbouze returns to this tragic event in an interview with Télé-Loisirs. At that time, the comedian was attending the first edition of Marrakech-de-Ré, and recalled the feeling of fear that had gripped everyone: “All the artists were afraid to come, but my friends followed me, like Gad Elmaleh, Omar Sy, Florence Forest, and Zinedine Zidane.”
A painful memory for the comedian who was also in Marrakesh on the day of the attack, capturing to Microphone Europe 1 in 2011: “I was stunned, I collapsed. This work is terrible. Especially since you cannot fight invisible enemies. They are cowards, they strike like traitors and they don’t give us the chance. To listen and go ahead. Argana is the cafe I go to often. This is where I take all my friends. My brother was there a quarter of an hour before the explosion, of course that bothered me.” Jamal Debbouze is very concerned about the future of Morocco, and wanted to be reassured: “I want to say to all the people who are made of natural ingredients, kind, smart, to keep going to Morocco, not to cancel reservations, and to continue to act as if there were no Something. Happened. It’s an accident, we should not punish Moroccans and Morocco for all that.”
This is also one of the reasons why Jamel Debbouze has kept the first edition of Marrakech rire, preferring a sense of humor and a life of obscurantism: “If I had canceled this festival, I would have continued to get people laughing and changing mindsets even if it seemed pretentious. It’s not a matter of trust or not. In Morocco. I come from this country, Moroccans are the ones who allowed me in a certain way to write my story. And it is not. Even to give them back this festival, it is because I feel good in Marrakesh. And my ambition is to create jobs and launch artists, to ensure the sustainability of this festival. Above all we wish, as in Rio de Janeiro and Carnival, that an entire city would be in turmoil all year round, to live this moment “he hoped in 2011. Prophetic words …
Comedians are criticized by critics
Because in fact, since the first edition, Le Marrakech du rire has become the unmissable summer festival. If millions of viewers watch it every year, many hope to turn up the body and don’t hesitate to spend big to get there. On stage, the show every year presents comedians from all walks of life, trained or untrained at Jamal Debbouze School. “I put the whole summer to recover from it. We attend this show for six months, we only play it once in our lives, it is so ephemeral that it is intense,” he recently stated in an interview with Télé-Loisirs. And unfortunately, like any big event, the critics are there, too. But some are more difficult to reap than others, especially when they come from an audience.
Every year, the Twitter birds have a great time and stop by some of the comedians present in Marrakech du Rire. “Today, everything has been dissected, because everything is in the public square. Everyone gives their opinion and can be criticized. I, I do not attach importance to it, it does not limit my space of freedom. But the new generation is more cautious, feeding on what we say on Networks. Sometimes it is very violent and unjust, and some of them are dried up with tweets and are having difficulty coming back.” Jamal Dabouz regrets.
video. The Minute of Jamal Debbouze
He himself knows something about her. In the many years of his career, he was often at the center of harsh criticism from the public at times with admiration, sometimes in disappointment. In 2019, his performance in Zénith de Lille for his show “Now or Jamel”, which was transcribed live on the M6, drew the ridicule of netizens. And this is not forgotten by Jamel Debbouze, as he told the Parisians: “I was a little disappointed with my last show. I was touched because we had an extraordinary tour. On the day the show is going to be bad, I will be the first to know. I won’t wait for poupoune89 or any dwarf.” Online” release it. Conclusion: “It hurt me. It’s still hard. But when I came back, I could feel people shaking and laughing, I remembered that there were only a few of them…”
Read also:
>> Jamal Debbouze: This show was mocked by netizens who got stuck in his throat
>> “It was a shock”: These projects that Jamal Debbouze lived through are “very bad”
>> Marrakech du Rire: Jamal Debbouze formalizes the cancellation of the 2020 edition
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