OSCAR HÔTEL BY ATLAS STUDIOS SINCE 1983
The geographical status of Ouarzazate makes it one of the most beautiful cities in Morocco.
Located in the south of the Kingdom, at 540 kilometers from the Capital, Rabat, Ouarzazate remains the biggest attraction of the south besides Marrakech.
The history of the economy development of Ouarzazate started with the visit of the King Hassan II in 1961, followed by the city airport construction.
Since then, high rated hotels began to be built in the new part of the city, and one of the most important investment was the Atlas Studios construction by a Moroccan investor in 1983.
The Oscar Hotel by Atlas Studios was built the same year to accommodate the film crews of Atlas Studios to accompany the development of cinema in the region of Ouarzazate.
Much like Ouarzazate itself, the history of The Oscar Hôtel by Atlas Studios, is a tale around the glamour of the 7th art.
Thanks to the studios, the economy of the region knew a fast development.
Film shooting helped the tourism economy by making advertisements to the city all over the world.
In the 80’s, the first movie shot in the Atlas Studios was « The Jewel of the Nile » starring Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Dany Devito followed in 1986 by the shooting of the 15th James Bond film payed by Timoty Dalton, « The Living Daylights ».
With this new cinema industry, people of the region started to have new job opportunities : hiring people in films as figurants, employees in making the decorum, translators between the employees and the foreigners, as stuntman or acrobat and all those jobs helped minimizing the number of unemployed.
At the end of the 90’s, and more exactly in 1998, the Atlas Studios have known the most impacted movie shot since their creation with the blockbuster « GLADIATOR » directed by Ridley Scott and staring the incredible Russel Crowe : It has given to the city a consideration by Hollywood and the professionals of the cinema industry and started to be considered as the African capital of Cinema, nicknamed « OUARZAWOOD ».
Since then, Ouarzazate started to be given consideration by many famous directors of cinema as Martin Scorsese, and visited by international stars like, Samuel L. Jackson, Jean-Claude VanDamne, Ben Kingsley, Nicole Kidman, Brad Pitt, Jean Paul Belmondo, Leonardo Di Caprio, and many more…
In 2008, a multi-sector group, bought ATLAS CORPORATION STUDIO : the main goal was to rejuvenate the image of the sets and the hotel.
Few months later, The Oscar Hotel by Atlas Studios turned from a 3 to 4 stars hotel enabling an offer of better quality and of a higher standard.
The Atlas Studios have also been renewed and many sets have been built to welcome huge production teams from all over the world.
Today, The Oscar Hotel by Atlas Studios continue to contribute to the epic of the world of cinema by hosting several foreign productions of different sizes and different nationalities but the hotel also welcomes many visitors came to visit the sets of many box office movies in the Atlas Studios and the beauty of many natural sites as the famous Kasbah Taourirt selected by the UNESCO and included in the World Heritage Program.