Maryam Touzani Director
Filmography Selected
Born in Tangier, Morocco, in 1980, Maryam Touzani spent her childhood in her native city before pursuing a university degree in journalism, in London. Passionate about writing, she moved back to her country after her studies and worked as a journalist, specialising in North African cinema. Soon, she felt the urge to express herself though her own films.
In 2008, she wrote and directed a documentary for the first National Women’s Day in Morocco, an important date for the country, followed by a number of other documentaries. When they slept (2012), her first short fiction, travelled around the world at festivals, winning a total of seventeen awards.
In 2015, her second short fiction, AYA GOES TO THE BEACH, continued on the same path, winning fifteen awards worldwide. Through film director Nabil Ayouch’s 'MUCH LOVED' (2015), which opened at the Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival, she took her experience further, working on the development of the script and participating on the film set at various levels, closely working with the director and actresses. Soon after, she co-wrote the feature film RAZZIA with Nabil Ayouch, which premiered at Toronto International Film Festival and represented Morocco at the Academy Awards. In RAZZIA, in which she also played the part of Salima, one of the main characters, she found herself on the other side of the camera for the first time.
ADAM marked Maryam Touzani’s feature film directing debut, and after premiering in Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard competition, and obtained 30 awards around the world, and sold to over 20 countries. ADAM was also Morocco’s Official Selection for the Oscars 2020 race in the best Foreign Film Category.
In 2022, Maryam Touzani returned to the Cannes Film Festival with her second feature “THE BLUE CAFTAN" selected at Un Certain Regard section, where it won the FIPRESCI award.
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2022
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Director/Writer
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THE BLUE CAFTAN
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2021
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Co-Writer
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CASABLANCA BEATS
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2019
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Director/Writer
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ADAM
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2017
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Co-Writer
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RAZZIA
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2015
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Director/Writer
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AYA GOES TO THE BEACH (short)
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2014
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Director/Writer
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MUCH LOVED (short)
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2012
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Director/Writer
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WHEN THEY SLEPT (short)
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★★★★
"Tugging the heartstrings with expert finesse, it is richly satisfying, with a deep commitment to aesthetic pleasure and craft, and to love and joy against the severity of dogma. A handcrafted pleasure indeed."
Jonathan Romney, The Financial Times
★★★★
"A hugely compassionate and emotionally satisfying movie. Maryam Touzani has put together a gentle, complex film: a love story between a gay man and his wife."
Cath Clarke, The Guardian
"A tender gay love story full of beauty...This movie is wonderfully emblematic of both the pains and the joys of building something to last.
Maryam Touzani films with a tender, suggestive eye for the slow and careful process of this tailoring, using these lyrical images as potent metaphors for the patience, beauty, and formality of this hetero-patriarchal world."
Christina Newland, The i paper
★★★★
"A stunning portrayal of marital sacrifice and devotion. And the ending hits with a wallop."
Kevin Mahler, The Times
★★★★
"It's a gentle piece of Arabic-languagee stortytelling, one that softy, slowly enfolds the audience rather than propels them on a journey."
Wendy Ide,The Observer
★★★★
"Love pervades this Moroccan drama"
Edward Porter, The Sunday Times
“Hand-stitched with loving care, Maryam Touzani’s The Blue Caftan is an elegant artisanal film that would be misrepresented by calling it obvious awards-season material. This Moroccan melodrama is clearly the sort of picture that’s likely to chime with people who don’t always gravitate towards foreign-language cinema. “This beautifully textured Moroccan drama is a superbly acted and emotionally resonant offering…Overall, the film is very much a plea for tolerance and a protest against gender-determined boundaries…a quiet but forceful snub to the system.”
Jonathan Romney, Screen International
“Overwhelmingly tender…a powerful vision of love and bravery. Appropriately enough, 'The Blue Caftan' is full of elegantly woven narrative and emotional threads…A nuanced portrayal of unconditional love and acceptance at its most radical."
Chris Shields, Sight & Sound
★★★★
“There is a lot about intimacy, sacrifice and love to be found in the delicate, subtle nuances of Maryam Touzani’s deeply affecting second feature.
Intimacy in its purest, most palpable form...It’s Azabal’s exceptional portrait of Mina…that emerges as the film’s beating heart."
Marina Ashioti, Little White Lies
★★★★★
"Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain (2005) meets Ingmar Bergman’s Cries and Whisper (1972), with a touch of Arab female sensibility. This is a movie so powerful that it is guaranteed to stay with you for a long time. A real powerhouse drama guaranteed to move even the most homophobic and sexist of viewers. Moroccan director Maryam Touzani succeeds in creating a film that’s profound and respectful of both its male and also of its female characters.
“This is a film about love and compassion. The three leads are extremely good, but it is Azabal that stands in the skin of the pallid and scrawny Mina. “
Victor Fraga, D Movies
★★★★
"Sensually shot and subtly acted by its impressive cast, Touzani's non-judgmental film quietly subverts expectations in order to challenge social conservatism."
Total Films
"Maryam Touzani's drama is elegant and restrained, treating its characters with the same tenderness and respect that Halim, a master craftsman, treats his fabrics with. It's also a terrific showcase for its two leads, Saleh Bakri...and Lubna Azabal."
Alex Denney, Another Magazine
★★★★
"Behold, The Blue Caftan, a heart-wrenching, Salé-set drama written, directed, and stitched together by Touzani."
Nick Chen, Dazed Digital Magazine
★★★★
"Maryam Touzani's handsome The Blue Caftan (Oscar shortlisted from Morocco in the Internatioanl Feature Film category)...weaves a web as diaphonous as the stitching on fine cloth."
Anne-Katrin Titze, Eye for Film
★★★★
"A heartwarming, unique, exceptional work, The Blue Caftan is among the best in international film."
Catherine Sedgwick, The Upcoming
★★★★
"Visual pleasures are woven into the rich dramatic fabric of a film which wears its heart-broken implications lightly, and to devastating effect...balances the devastating effects of prejudice against the redemptive succour of love."
Benjamin Poole, The Movie Waffler
★★★★
"Clever, beautiful, tragic film considers how good people face life-suffocating choices because of others' issues.
Touzani is a film-maker with plenty to say and has a brilliant way of saying it. Her next project is eagerly awaited."
Dan Carrier, Camden New Journal/Islington Tribune/West End Extra
★★★★
"One to be cherished for a wide variety of commendable reasons, some artistic and cinematic, some much more specifically human."
Jeremy Clarke, Jeremy Processing
"There's something downright lustful about the opening scenes of 'The Blue Caftan,'...it's clear right away that this Moroccan drama from Maryam Touzani...has something to say aobut desire...Touzani's film becomes an ode to the many kinds of love that persist, even in an unforgiving world.'
Devika Girish, The New York Times
“The slow-burn yet richly emotional drama should land attention by virtue of the relative paucity of queer films in Maghreb cinema alone. But this is compelling storytelling…The way 'The Blue Caftan' comes into play in a conclusion that marks the movie’s sole use of non-diegetic music is just beautiful. The same goes for the brief final shot, a simple image that speaks volumes with the same elegant economy that characterizes this stirring love story.”
David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter
"An exquistely tender tribut to love in its purest expression, "The Blue Caftan" doesn't romanticise the complications and conflicts facing its two soulmates, and precisely because of that it feels like an utterly honest tale of romance."
Carlos Agullar, Los Angeles Times
“A tender Moroccan drama…Also a subtle portrait of a marriage, it slowly unveils the issues of its characters with an empathetic, admiring gaze."
Anna Smith, DEADLINE
“A moving, poetic, and beautifully acted story of love, death and fear… one of the most impressive titles at this year’s (Cannes Film Festival) edition. This story of love, death and fear tugs at the viewers’ heartstrings through dry dialogue, a controlled mise-en-scène and excellent performances. All in all, Touzani’s sophomore feature is a brave film made with love and simplicity.”
Davide Abbatescianni, Cineuropa
"Phantom Thread’ Meets ‘Before Midnight’ in Stunning Three-Hander
Working with an intricacy that rivals that of the craftsman at the center of her film, the auteur crafts a surprisingly warm story that subverts expectations at almost every turn. Remarkably sweet and life affirming. Anchored by three remarkable performances and a beautiful script that never wastes a line, Maryam Touzani made a film that oozes love from almost every frame."
Christian Zilko IndieWire
“How Touzani ultimately utilizes the blue caftan for resonance is nothing short of brilliant, and the delicacy she imbues this story with is nothing short of potent. The stops she makes along the way, fully exploring these characters with grace, is assured. A nuanced and empathetic tale about sexuality and mortality…whenever you think you know where Maryam Touzani’s entrancing drama “The Blue Caftan” is going, she blindsides you with a fierce emotional wallop.”
Robert Daniels, rogerebert.com
Deftly explores the complexities of interpersonal and romantic relationships. Maryam Touzani (“Adam”) crafts her latest film, “The Blue Caftan,” with as delicate a hand as its lead, artisan Halim (Saleh Bakri, “Costa Brava, Lebanon”), does in sewing his ceremonial caftans.”
Marya E Gates, THE PLAYLIST
“'Adam' director Maryam Touzani takes on the subject of homosexuality in Morocco, casting the great Lubna Azabal …'The Blue Caftan'dares to imagine a world where there’s room for both appreciation of the old ways and room to evolve.”
Peter Debruge, Variety
