Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentMoroccan director Maryam Touzani, whose is sophomore feature, “The Blue Caftan,” unspools in Un Certain Regard, has never been afraid to tackle topics that shatter her country’s social conventions.She’s made a doc about Morocco’s female prostitutes that sparked plenty of attention and a short about the exploitation of children as domestic workers.
Her first feature, “Adam,” looked at the plight of single mothers (it also screened in Un Certain Regard).In “Blue Caftan” Touzani turns her gaze on the concealed homosexuality of a married man in Morocco where, in accordance with Islamic laws and customs, same-sex sexual activity is illegal and can be punished with imprisonment.
The film stars Lubna Azabal (“Adam”) and Saleh Bakri (“Costa Brava, Lebanon”) as Mina and Halim, a married couple who run a traditional caftan store in one of Morocco’s oldest medinas, or “old towns,” in the city of Salè.
To keep up with demand, they hire Youssef (newcomer Ayoub Messioui), a talented apprentice whom Halim takes under his wing. Slowly, Mina, whose health is deteriorating, realizes how much her husband is taken by the presence of this young man.Touzani says the film’s story was triggered by a chance encounter she made while scouting in the medina for “Adam.” She met a man “who reminded me of a lot of things I had heard in my childhood about men who were married and who were gay, and had to hide their homosexuality,” she says.As a child she never really grasped what this meant. “It was always half murmured,” Touzani recalls.Only later she fully understood the implications of being gay in Morocco.Meeting this man she realized “there was something I thought was very violent in the way that I.
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