Red ochre walls enclose covered souk lanes and the square used in Hideous Kinky and Sex and the City 2.
What Medina of Marrakesh looks like
The walls that ring the medina are built from rammed red ochre earth, six to eight metres high and up to two metres thick, with defensive towers set every twenty five to thirty metres. 's carved horseshoe arch marks the gate into the Kasbah quarter. Sections of the wall collapsed in the September 2023 earthquake.
Red plaster walls run along the narrower lanes, interrupted only by wooden doors set flush into them. Riads sit behind those doors, their courtyards opening onto tiled fountains and orange trees out of view from the street.
runs from toward the under a roof of wooden slats, the gaps throwing bars of light across the stalls below. Dyed wool hangs in bright skeins along the walls of the dyers' souk nearby, and the weavers' lanes are stacked with folded rugs.
Jemaa el-Fnaa opens into a wide paved square at the foot of the 's nearly seventy metre minaret, visible above the rooflines from most of the medina's lanes. Cafe terraces with iron balconies line its northern edge, looking down over the market stalls below.
Carved cedar panels and zellij tile line the Ben Youssef Madrasa's courtyard, around a reflecting pool about three by seven metres. The cells that once housed students sit two storeys above the arcade.
Shot in Medina of Marrakesh
Both Hideous Kinky and Sex and the City 2 filmed around Jemaa el-Fnaa, the medina's main square at the foot of the Koutoubia Mosque's minaret. Hideous Kinky plays the city as itself, while Sex and the City 2 used the same stalls and crowds as a market in the fictional Abu Dhabi of its story.
Hideous Kinky, 1998
Jemaa el-Fnaa
Hideous Kinky filmed its Marrakesh scenes in the square itself rather than on a built set. The film stars Kate Winslet and is set in the city, so Jemaa el-Fnaa plays itself on screen. The market stalls and the Koutoubia minaret both appear in the same frame. Street View
Sex and the City 2, 2010
Played a souk market, Abu Dhabi, present day
Sex and the City 2 shot several sequences around the same square, using Morocco as a stand-in once Dubai and Abu Dhabi declined to permit filming for the story's Middle Eastern setting. The scenes play as a market in the film's fictional Abu Dhabi rather than as Marrakesh.
What Medina of Marrakesh can double for
Kasbah Taourirt in Ouarzazate, Morocco
Kasbah Taourirt's red rammed earth fortress walls and corner towers sit at the same scale and colour as the medina's own ramparts. The kasbah is a single fortified compound rather than a market town, so wide shots work better than lane level coverage. Its stepped tower profile is also taller than anything inside the medina walls. Try searching red rammed earth fortress walls now.
Khan el-Khalili in Cairo, Egypt
Khan el-Khalili's covered bazaar lanes break daylight into the same kind of patterned shade as Souk Semmarine, with stalls packed shoulder to shoulder under the roofing. The bazaar's walls run to pale limestone rather than red earth, so a tighter frame on the stalls themselves holds the match better than a wide shot of the walls. Try searching covered bazaar lanes now.
Canyon Road in Santa Fe, New Mexico
The reddish brown adobe buildings along Canyon Road run low and flat roofed in a similar earth plaster to the medina's own walls. Paved sidewalks, parked cars and gallery signage are modern giveaways in anything wider than a close frame on the walls themselves. Try searching reddish brown adobe buildings now.
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