The tributes of the 8th edition of International Film Festival of Marrakech continued Friday evening at the Palais des congrès of the ochre city, with the honouring, this time, of the Asian actress Michelle Yeoh.
The artistic Director of the IFFM, Melita Toscan du Plantier, who gave on this occasion the Etoile d'Or of the Festival, highlighted the exceptional talent of Michelle Yeoh known for her action roles, her choreographic fluency and her mastery of martial arts.
For her part, the Asian actress was "honoured" by this tribute, noting that through these roles she is trying to prove that a woman can also do "battle, running on rooftops while retaining her femininity ". "I am impressed by the welcome I received in Morocco and the Moroccan hospitality," she added, expressing the wish to make a film soon in Morocco and "run on the rooftops of Marrakech. The ceremony was followed by the screening of the film Far North (2007), directed by Asif Kapadia, who introduced this feature. Born as Yang Zi Chong in the mining town of Ipoh in West Malaysia in the lunar year of the Tiger, she spoke English and Malay before Chinese.
A ballet dancer since age 4, she moved to London, England to study at the Royal Academy as a teenager. After a brief dance career, she won the Miss Malaysia beauty pageant title in her native country and the Miss Moomba beauty pageant title in Melbourne, Australia in the early 1980s. Her first on camera work was a 1984 commercial with martial arts star Jackie Chan. In 1985, she began making action movies with D&B Films of Hong Kong. She was first billed as Michelle Khan, then later, Michelle Yeoh. Never a trained martial artist, she relied on her dance discipline and her on-set trainers to prepare for her martial arts action scenes. She uses many dance moves in her films. She still does most of her own stunts and has been injured many times. Ironically, she still cannot read Chinese and she has to have Chinese script read to her.
