Oscars: Morocco Selects Maryam Touzani’s ‘The Blue Caftan’ For Best International Film Race

Melanie Goodfellow
·2 min read

Maryam Touzani’s exploration of suppressed homosexuality The Blue Caftan has been submitted as Morocco’s official entry in the Best International Feature Film Oscar category.

The feature debuted in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard and sidebar and recently played in Toronto.

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Lubna Azabal and Saleh Bakri play a husband and wife who run a handmade caftan shop in one of Morocco’s oldest medinas in the city of Salé. Their marriage hides a secret that neither wants to confront until a young male assistant (Ayoub Missioui) enters their lives.

The Blue Caftan is Touzani’s second feature film after Adam, which dealt with single motherhood, another taboo subject within Moroccan society. That film was the country’s Oscar entry in 2019.

Touzani also has taken writing and producing credits on husband Nabil Ayouch’s features Razzia and Casablanca Beats.

“I’m proud to announce that The Blue Caftan has just been officially chosen by Morocco to be its official entry for the Oscars,” Ayouch, who is one of the film’s producers, told Deadline.

“After Cannes and Toronto, many other festivals are coming in the U.S., where Strand Releasing is doing a very good job … and the film has been sold in more than 30 territories by Films Boutique until now,” he added.

Ayouch and Amine Benjelloun produced under the banners of Les films du nouveau monde and Ali n’ Productions with Sebastien Schelenz at Paris-based Velvet Films and Mikkel Jersin, Eva Jakobson and Katrin Pors at Danish production house Snowglobe.

Morocco has never made it to the final nomination stage, while Roschdy Zem’s Omar Killed Me made it to the shortlist in 2012.

The selection process was overseen by the Moroccan Cinema Centre (CCM).

CCM head of exhibition and distribution at the Samira Himeur presided over the committee, comprising producer/directors Mohammed Abderrahman Tazi and Jamal Souissi, exhibitor Al Hosain Boudih, distributor Najib Benkirane and film critics Abdelilah El Jaouhary and Khalil Damoun.

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