RABAT, MOROCCO - The 23rd edition of the International Mediterranean Film Festival opened on Saturday in Morocco's northern city of Tetouan, with China as the guest of honor. The festival, which runs until April 2, will screen several Chinese movies reflecting various areas of China's film industry.

Among the movies, which will be screened during the festival, there are Wu Ershan's movie Mojin: The Lost Legend, Dante Lam's Operation Mekong, Xu Haofeng's The Master and Cao Baoping's The Dead End.

"In the past few editions, the festival has opened up to countries outside of the Mediterranean region. We hosted the Iranian, Mexican and Chilean movies and today we chose China," the director of the festival Ahmed EL Housni told Xinhua.

He stressed that the Chinese film-making has distinguished itself in recent years as one of the leading industries in the world, adding that the festival aims to present this experience to wider Moroccan public.

Honoring Chinese cinema in the festival is another facet of the friendly bilateral relationship, he said, adding that ties between China and Morocco have witnessed a significant progress both economically and culturally.

The official competition of the festival includes 24 films from 15 Mediterranean countries, including 12 feature films and 12 documentary films.

The feature films will be contesting for the Grand Prix Tamouda d'or, whereas the documentary films will be competing for the Tetouan Grand Prix for documentary films.

The jury of the feature films will be presided by the Egyptian director Yousry Nasrallah, while the documentary jury will be headed by French screen writer Thomas Bauer.

Established in 1985, the Tetouan International Film Festival focuses on the promotion of films from Mediterranean countries, and it is gaining influence as a major project in Morocco.