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It's been said that there are no new stories under the sun. That's not an accurate statement; there's always someone cooking up something new. To be fair, looking at the average Hollywood slate can make you cynical. Yet amongst the reboots and remakes and rip-offs are inspired retellings of a much subtler kind. Everything old can be made new again, and one method is using ancient mythology to inspire modern drama.

It's not a leap. Greek myths helped set the tone for today's storytellers, with Joseph Campbell's breakdown of the monomyth -- the Hero's Journey -- providing those writers with their first One Weird Trick to create a successful story. But it's not just the rhythm of the story — the call to adventure, the return, etc. — that's still used today. It's the myths themselves, dressed up in ways both familiar and not. The former is a fun place to play,...

Most fans know Denis Villeneuve for his exceptional directorial work on the Dune movies, and many of them are excited for the upcoming installment, Dune Messiah. It’s his final outing in the highly acclaimed science fiction franchise, so all eyes are set on it.

While he is largely recognized in this genre, the Canadian filmmaker also made a war-themed picture that remains a top pick for movie buffs out there. Not many know this Oscar-nominated Best Foreign Language Film, but you can watch it on Apple TV today.

Incendies is Denis Villeneuve’s most haunting cinematic masterpiece Lubna Azabal in Incendies / Credits: Entertainment One

Denis Villeneuve’s 2010 movie Incendies is one of his finest works, and a work that is not for the faint-hearted. It follows Canadian twins who travel to their mother’s native home to uncover the mysteries of her past amid a bloody civil war. The...

Denis Villeneuve charmed his 2000-strong audience at the London Film Festival with a personal review of his long career, including his number one rule for creating a happy film set.

The Dune director was asked how he deals with A-list egoes on his huge film sets, and replied directly: “First rule: you avoid the assholes.”

Asked if he would name anyone in particular, he tactfully demurred, saying instead he considered it “a game” to get the best out of any actor he recruited to appear in a film.

Villeneuve also intimated his desire to make a dialogue-free film at some point. He said:

“I love dialogue, but not [always] in cinema,” explaining that it was sometimes better suited to theatre or television. “I hope one day I will be able to make a film that will not use spoken language. I try as much as possible to use the power of images.

The 2024 Cannes Film Festival was officially closed yesterday, on May 25, 2024, as the prizes for the movies and the actors were awarded at the closing ceremony. It was a very exciting and content-filled event, and we have also reported on numerous movies that had their premiere at Cannes, some of which were received well, while others… not so much. But, naturally, everyone wants to know who won and who lost at Cannes, and that is what we are going to report about in this article.

The article will be divided into two main sections. The first one will list all the juries at Cannes, since they are the ones who chose the winners at the film festival, so we think that it is only fair that you know who picked the winners. After that, we are going to list all the winners in each of the categories.

As we have said,...

Sean Baker’s Anora has won the Palme d’Or at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, which wrapped Saturday night (May 25).

The US comedy-drama stars Mikey Madison as the titular Anora, a sex worker who finds herself married to a Russian oligarch and must fend off his parents who are keen for an annulment. It marks Baker’s second time in Competition, following 2021’s Red Rocket.

Scroll down for full list of winners

In his speech, Baker devoted the award “to all sex workers past, present and future”, and voiced his support for theatrical distribution: “The future of cinema is where...

“Sunflowers Were the First Ones to Know…” from Chidananda S Naik, a student from Ftii, Pune, India, has received La Cinef Award for best short, sparking thunderous applause, at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

The film, the director told Variety, was “challenging to shoot.”

“We had only four days. I was basically told not to make this film. It’s based on folklore from Karnataka [in India]. These are the stories we grew up with, so I was carrying this idea since my childhood.

In the film, an elderly woman steals a rooster and deprives a village of sunlight.

Jurors Lubna Azabal, who was the president, Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar, Claudine Nougaret, Paolo Moretti and Vladimir Perišić, also decided to award joint second prize to “The Chaos She Left Behind” by Nikos Kolioukos (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki – Greece) and “Out the Window Through the Wall” by Asya Segalovich (Columbia University – U.S).

Claudine...

The Cannes Film Festival has unveiled the eleven titles selected for the Short Film Competition of its 77th edition running from May 14 to 25.

Works in the running include U.S. director Blake Rice’s drama Tea starring Michael Gandolfini (Beau Is Afraid) as a lonely and highly allergic Circuit-Shack employee, who gets stung in the throat by a hornet, while rehearsing to ask the girl of his dreams out on a date.

Olivia Nikkanen, Matt Van Orden and Zina Louhaichy also feature in the cast.

Other contenders include two French animated works: Éric Briche’s Volcelest, about a hungry ermine on a mission to raid a chicken coop for food, and Raphaël Jouzeau’s Les Belles Cicatrices, about a broken couple reunion which takes a difficult turn.

This year’s jury will be presided over by Belgian director Lubna Azabal, flanked by director Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar, programmer and ex-Directors Fortnight head Paolo Moretti,...

Denis Villeneuve At Worldwide Box Office (Photo Credit – Facebook/IMDb)

Denis Villeneauve’s Dune: Part Two is about to hit the screens in just a few days, and this month, the first part was re-released in the theatres. The film has done well again, adding a few more million to its global collections. But besides the Dune franchise, Villeneuve has done other films as well, and today, we have brought to you a least to the best-ranked list of his movies, per their global collections.

The French-Canadian filmmaker is known for his sci-fi movies like Blade Runner 2049, Arrival, and more. He received an Oscar nomination as a director for his film Arrival. In 2021, his movie Dune came out with Timothee Chalamet in the lead role, winning six Academy Awards, including Best Sound and Visual Effects. The sequel’s early reviews have been positive, and the critics only praise it.

Maryam Touzani’s “The Blue Caftan,” a drama revolving around the love between a closeted man and his wife, has sold more than 500,000 tickets around the world.

The Arabic-language movie, which world premiered at Cannes in 2022 and won the Fipresci prize, has sold the most admissions overseas than any other Moroccan film in recent history, according to French promotion org Unifrance. “The Blue Caftan” was particularly successful in France, where it sold 214,000 admissions, followed by the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and Japan.

Produced by leading Moroccan filmmaker Nabil Ayouch, “The Blue Caftan” stars Lubna Azabal (“Incendies”) and Saleh Bakri.

Touzani’s follow-up to Un Certain Regard title “Adam,” “The Blue Caftan” tells the story of Halim and Mina, a married couple running a traditional caftan store in one of Morocco’s oldest medinas. In order to keep up with the commands of the demanding customers, they hire Youssef. The talented apprentice...

At the Award Ceremony of the 27th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF), awards were presented to the winners of the festival’s five competition programmes and PÖFF’s youth and children’s film sub-festival Just Film.

The jury of the Official Selection Competition, headed by Trine Dyrholm, selected Emma Dante’s drama Misericordia as their favourite, handing the film the Grand Prix for Best Film.

Dante adapted her own play of the same name, telling the story of three prostitutes who live in the wasteland by the sea, where a village of outcasts has emerged. Its star Simone Zambelli also scooped the Best Actor Award.

The jury commented on the film with the following statement: “A powerful film about how to stay supportive and, above all, exhibit humanity in a marginalised environment. Beautifully directed, shot and acted, the Best Film Award goes to Misericordia.”

The Best Director Award went toManuel Martín CuencaforAndrea’s Love.

Emma Dante’s film took the Grand Prix, plus best actor for Simone Zambelli.

Emma Dante’s Italian drama Misericordia won the award for best film in Official Selection Competition at the 27th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, at the awards ceremony held tonight.

Adapted from Dante’s own play of the same name, the film follows three sex workers living in a wasteland by the sea, where the only light in their lives is the young man they care for together.

Scroll down for the full list of winners

Simone Zambelli also received the best actor award in the section.

Italian writer-director Emma Dante’s “Misericordia” has won the top prize at the Black Nights Film Festival in Tallinn, Estonia. Adapted from her own play, her third feature tells the story of a young man (Simone Zambelli) with learning difficulties, cared for by a group of sex workers on an island, protecting him from the cruelty of his abusive father. It’s a raw portrait of a marginalized group of people, mixing natural beauty of the locations with the grime of everyday existence.

Zambelli also took the award for best actor, for his role as the man-child at the center of the drama. The best actress prize was shared by Lubna Azabal, who plays a teacher in Jawad Rhalib’s “Amal,” and Kim Higelin, who stars in the controversial French drama “Consent,” directed by Vanessa Filho, as a teenager having an affair with a manipulative and exploitative 50-year-old writer.

The...

Juliette Binoche, Marion Cotillard and Jacques Audiard are among 500 French cinema professionals to have signed an open letter in support of a silent march for peace in Paris this Sunday.

The initiative – created in response to the Israel-Hamas conflict and its ongoing reverberations around the world – is being spearheaded by the newly launched Une Autre Voix (Another Voice) collective.

“This fratricidal war affects us all, and regardless of our reasons or affinities on each side of the wall, we want it to cease and that both peoples finally live in peace,” reads the letter.

“This is why we are organizing a silent, united, humanist and peaceful march that will open with a single long white banner. No political claims nor slogans. White flags, white handkerchiefs are welcome.”

Belgian-Moroccan actress Lubna Azabal presides over the Une Autre Voix collective which also features French...

Bendita Films Sales has taken worldwide rights outside Benelux to Jawad Rhalib’s social drama “Amal,” toplining award-winning Belgian actress Lubna Azabal, who appeared in Oscar-nominated films “Paradise Now” and “Incendies.”

Télescope has acquired the film’s distribution rights for the Benelux region.

“Amal” world premieres Nov. 17, competing in main competition at Tallinn’s 27th Black Nights Film Festival edition.

Set up at prolific, successful Belgian outfit Scope Pictures, “Amal” is produced by Geneviéve Lemal and co-produced by Ellen de Waele.

Azabal plays an idealistic and passionate French literature teacher in a suburban Brussels school, who becomes the target of intense hostility from students and colleagues tied to Islamic extremism when she chooses to help a teenage Muslim girl accused of homosexuality.

Santa Cruz de Tenerife-based Bendita Films Sales will make “Amal’s” market premiere at Berlin’s European Film Market in February.

“We were completely dazzled by the film’s narrative strength,...

Other signatories include Isabelle Adjani, Jacques Audiard and Michel Hazanavicius.

More than 500 leading figures from the French film and cultural industries have signed a letter calling for a silent march on Sunday (November 19) in Paris in response to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

Marion Cotillard, Melanie Laurent, Isabelle Adjani, Nathalie Baye, Jacques Audiard, Christophe Honore and Michel Hazanavicius are among the actors, filmmakers, agents and producers who have called for “a silent march of solidarity, humanism and peace”. The initiative was organised by Le Collectif Une Autre Voix (Another Voice) and spearheaded by the group’s President Lubna Azabal, a Belgian...

From directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, Rebel tells the story of Kamal (Aboubakr Bensaihi), who leaves his family behind in Belgium to help war victims in Syria, but then finds himself forced to join Isis. While Kamal falls deeper into the brutality of his new reality, his younger brother Nassim (Amir El Arbi) becomes easily manipulated by a recruiter looking to radicalize the next generation, and their mother (Lubna Azabal) must fight to protect him from the same fate as her eldest.

In this week’s episode of The Discourse, host Mike DeAngelo brings back directors Adil El Arbi & Bilall Fallah to discuss the film “Rebel.” The dramatic musical thriller follows a Muslim Belgian family as they are slowly ripped apart by Islamic extremists through various devious radicalization techniques. The film stars Aboubakr Bensaihi, Lubna Azabal, Tara Abboud, Amir El Arbi, and more.

Read More: ‘Rebel’ Review: Adil El Arbi & Bilall Fallah’s Radicalization Drama Pulsates With Terrible Inevitability [Cannes]

During the interview, the filmmaking duo discuss how personal the film is to them as it mirrors many experiences they had growing up in Belgium.

“It’s our most personal project ever,” El Arbi said.

Continue reading ‘Rebel’: Adil El Arbi & Bilall Fallah On Their Musical Drama About Islamic Radicalization,’ Their ‘Batgirl’ Experience, ‘Ms. Marvel’ & More [The Discourse Podcast] at The Playlist.

"I'm just trying to survive." Yellow Veil Pictures has debuted an official US trailer for the intense war film Rebel, an action thriller made by the acclaimed Belgian-Moroccan filmmaking duo known as Adil & Bilall. This first premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival last year, and we posted a UK trailer for it last fall. Adil El Arbi & Bilall Fallah are known as talented action directors who broke into Hollywood with Bad Boys for Life, then Disney+'s "Ms. Marvel" series as well as Batgirl for WB (before they canned it). This was made inbetween all that. Set in Brussels and Syria, Kamal resolves to change his life for the better, so he leaves to help war victims in Syria. But he is forced to join a militia and is left stranded in Raqqa, suddenly working for the bad guys. Back home, his younger brother Nassim quickly becomes easy prey for radical recruiters,...

Following the recent end of the Covid-19 public health emergency, 2023 has been a transitional year for most people, signaling a return to some sort of normalcy. But even the so-called “new normal” has left many struggling to keep their bearings in a world that’s changing at an ever-rapid pace. This limbo state is unsurprisingly reflected in some the year’s best films, which catch characters in a state of in-betweenness as they search for everything from social acceptance and professional stability to sexual liberation and emotional restoration.

Just as characters in many of our favorite films of the year so far have found themselves in the midst of some form of metamorphosis, so, too, have filmmakers been discovering new ways of seeing, whether through stylistic innovation or genre reinvention. Our list includes works that have reconfigured what animated and found footage films can accomplish, as well as challenged our preconceived notions of cinematic structure.

Hanging Gardens Hanging Gardens has been named best film at the 7th Critics Awards for Arab Films, which were presented at Cannes Film Festival.

The Iraq-set film directed by Ahmed Yassin Al Daradji tells the story of a young boy who finds a sex doll on a rubbish dump on the outskirts of Baghdad.

The awards are run by the Arab Cinema Centre and were voted on by 193 film critics from 72 countries.

Lubna Azabal won the best actress award for her role in Maryam Touzani’s The Blue Caftan, which led the nominations and which also picked up the awards for best screenplay for Touzani and cinematography for Virginie Surdej.

The best directing and editing awards went to Youssef Chebbi and Valentin Féron respectively for Tunisian thriller Ashkal.

Adam Bessa, was named best actor for Harka. The best documentary went to Jumana Manna for Foragers, which considers the conflict over foraged food.

Morocco’s ‘The Blue Caftan’ wins a hat-trick of awards.

Iraq director Ahmed Yassin Al Daradji’s Hanging Gardens has been named best film at the 7th Critics Awards for Arab Films, which will celebrate its winners in Cannes today.

Al Daradji’s directorial feature debut premiered at Venice and went on to win best film at the Red Sea International Film Festival in December. The film follows a 12-year-old boy living as a rubbish picker in the dumps of Baghdad, nicknamed the ‘hanging gardens’, who finds a discarded US sex doll. True Colours handles sales.

This year’s edition of the awards,...

Morgan Simon’s completed second feature also stars Félix Lefebvre, and Lubna Azabal and is screening first footage at the Cannes market.

Paris-based sales company Pulsar Content has boarded French director Morgan Simon’s completed second feature A Free Woman, starring Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, Félix Lefebvre, and Lubna Azabal and is screening first footage at the Cannes market.

A Free Woman is produced by Trois Brigands Productions and Wild Bunch Productions, with Wild Bunch releasing in France.

Inspired by his own mother’s life and shot in the suburb he grew up in, Simon’s film is about the relationship between...

The Blue Caftan leads nominees, with stars Saleh Bakri and Lubna Azabal both receiving nods along with director Maryam Touzani Photo: New Wave The Arab Cinema Center (Acc) recently revealed the final nominees for the seventh edition of the Critics Awards for Arab Films, which will be highlighting Arab films produced last year. After the first round of voting, The Blue Caftan is the frontrunner with seven nominations.

The films are being assessed by a jury committee of 193 critics from 72 countries and the winners will be announced during a ceremony that will be held during the upcoming edition of the Cannes Film Festival.

This year, the jury added three more categories — Best Editing, Best Cinematography, and Best Music — in addition to its main categories, including Best Feature Film, Best Documentary, Best Director, Best Scriptwriter, Best Actor, and Best Actress.

“The seventh Critics Awards for Arab Films celebrates a wide range...

The Blue Caftan by Moroccan director and Cannes 2023 Jury member Maryam Touzani has topped the nominations in the seventh edition of the Critics Awards for Arab Films.

The portrait of marriage and stifled sexuality, starring Saleh Bakri and Lubna Azabal has been nominated in seven categories including best film, actor, actress, director, screenplay, cinematography and music.

The film world premiered in Cannes Un Certain Regard in 2022 and went on to be Morocco’s best international film submission for the 2023 Academy Awards making it as far as the first long list.

The Critics Awards for Arab Films are overseen by the Arab Cinema Centre and judged by 193 critics from 72 countries. The winners will be announced at a ceremony during Cannes.

To qualify for consideration, films need to have premiered at international film festivals outside of the Arab world in 2022; involve at least one Arab world production company, and be feature-length.

Other...

Three categories have been added to this year’s awards.

Moroccan filmmaker Maryam Touzani’s The Blue Caftan leads the nominations in the 7th Critics Awards for Arab Films, which has added categories for best editing, cinematography and music.

The Arabic-language drama, in which a woman and her closeted gay husband hire a young apprentice at their caftan store, secured seven nominations – every category except editing and documentary. The film premiered in Un Certain Regard at Cannes last year and was Morocco’s submission for the international feature film Oscar, making the shortlist but not final nominations.

A strong showing...

Maryam Touzani’s compassionate and complex film slowly peels back the layers of a marriage between a couple who work together in their dressmaker’s shop

This tender and sad drama should come with the opposite of a content warning: a reassuring note at the start to explain that no physical harm or public humiliation will come to the gay men whose story we are about to watch. It’s set in Morocco where homosexuality is a criminal offence, and for the first half an hour I assumed the emotional brace position, convinced it would end in arrest or worse for its lead character. But instead, the film’s director Maryam Touzani had put together a gentle, complex film: a love story between a gay man and his wife.

Ridiculously good-looking Palestinian actor Saleh Bakri’s handsome face is hidden away behind a caterpillar-like moustache to play Halim, a master...

Halim (Saleh Bakri) and Youssef (Ayoub Missioui) in The Blue Caftan. Maryam Touzani: 'I think that the emotion can be expressed through different little gestures, through glance through very little details that we don't necessarily see' Photo: New Wave The delicate fabric of love is examined from unusual angles in the second feature from Maryam Touzani. The Blue Caftan tells the story of the complex relationship that develops between tailor Halim (Saleh Bakri), his wife Mina (Lubna Azabal) and Youssef (Ayoub Missioui), an apprentice who they take on. Touzani’s film is as delicately worked as one of Halim’s caftans as she takes time to build the characters and their story into a drama full of understanding and hopefulness.

The inspiration for the caftan itself - which we see Halim intricately working on during the course of the film, came from Touzani’s own family.

She says: “I...

Arthouse genre distribution company Yellow Veil Pictures has acquired North American rights “Rebel,” a music-filled thriller by the Belgian directing duo Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah. The pair broke into Hollywood with “Bad Boys for Life” starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence and are set to direct the sequel for Sony Pictures.

“Rebel” was produced by Caviar, the banner behind the Oscar-winning film “Sound of Metal” as well as “War Pony.” It world premiered at Cannes last year in the Midnight section and be theatrically released later this year.

“Rebel” follows Kamal, a young man seeking meaning for his life, who leaves Belgium to help war victims in Syria. Once there, he is forced to join Isis and discovers the propaganda, manipulation, and atrocity the militia is responsible for. Back home, Kamal’s brother Nassim is slowly indoctrinated by radical recruiters and persuaded to join Kamal in Syria, while...

“El Houb” (“The Love”) tells the story of Karim (Fahd Larhzaoui), a young Moroccan-Dutch man caught by his father with another man, who rushes home to finally talk to his parents about the truth he’s hidden from them for so long. What follows is a difficult but necessary confrontation as Karim, after years of keeping up appearances, finally opens up about the fact that he’s gay — but can he expect acceptance from his family if he still hasn’t come to terms with his sexuality?

Watch the trailer, exclusively at TheWrap, at the top of the page.

The intimate new drama from writer-director Shariff Nasr defies stereotypes about Middle Eastern and North African (Mena) immigrant communities, examining how for many in this situation, the challenge to overcome isn’t hate or bigotry, but silence. Starring Larhzaoui, Lubna Azabal, and Slimane Dazi, “El Houb” was written by Nasr, Philip Delmaar and Fahd Larhzaoui,...

Written and directed by Maryam Touzani, The Blue Caftan, which debuted at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, understands the depth of honesty and its effect on love. Two people who have shared their lives know better than most their secrets. For the couple at the center of the film, they are more than just each other’s confidantes — they truly see one another, and offer compassion, support, and tenderness. Beautifully crafted, The Blue Caftan weaves together the nuanced tale of a couple's love story and history in an intricate, gentle, and profound way.

Halim (Saleh Bakri) and Mina (Lubna Azabal) run a caftan shop together. Halim does the sewing, while Mina handles the customers. The couple’s shop has been struggling; Halim prefers to make the caftans by hand, but without proper help, he can only work on so many and customers become impatient, threatening to take their business elsewhere. Halim...

Diverse festival notables from Hannah Ha Ha to The Blue Caftan join a spattering of specialty horror titles led by Consecration, and the U.S. theatrical debut of Gaspar Noé’s controversial Irréversible: Straight Cut.

The last is presented by Altered Innocence, whose owner Frank Jaffe spoke with Deadline about why he wanted to give Noe’s unusual 2019 director’s cut — of the Argentinian/French director’s disturbing 2002 film Irreversible — a release Stateside. “It’s a film that needs to be seen. Or made available,” he said. StudioCanal approached him twice. “They said, ‘No one is brave enough to take on this film. Will you?’” And “there is an audience for it…Tickets are selling.”

Jaffe said he first watched Irreversible, or tried to, via Netflix mail order DVD when he was 14. “My dad made me turn it off halfway through.”

It had a big impact on him. He...

“The Blue Caftan,” the second feature from Moroccan writer-director Maryam Touzani, is not exactly packed with incident. It is basically a standard triangle drama that has been stretched out to an interminable length.

Halim (Saleh Bakri) and his wife Mina (Lubna Azabal) run a store specializing in caftans in Salé, Morocco and hire an apprentice named Youssef (Ayoub Missioui) to work with them. Halim steals looks at Youssef nearly right away, and Mina sees her husband looking. Touzani trains her camera very closely on her characters and rarely lets in any outside influences; the majority of the movie takes place inside the shop and also a nearby bathhouse where Halim goes to have furtive sex with men.

Touzani’s camera follows Halim and another man to a cubicle at the bathhouse but then cuts after they close the door. Some time later in the film, when we see Halim at...

Maryam Touzani’s handsome The Blue Caftan (Oscar shortlisted from Morocco in the International Feature Film category) begins with the petrol blue cloth that will become the titular garment. A male hand strokes the silk; we see a yellow measuring tape dangling around the man’s neck. His name is Halim (a superb Saleh Bakri), a maalem, a traditional caftan maker who sells his magnificent, hand-embroidered wares in the Medina in his shop which he runs with wife Mina.

A new apprentice, Youssef (smouldering Ayoub Missioui), seems to be more interested, more eager to learn the craft than the many who came and went before him. It is an old, dying-out profession that produces not simply clothes, but precious objects that take a long time and much expertise to make. We get to witness the process of building one garment throughout and it is mesmerizing to see how...

Rabia

A new voice in German cinema embarks on a journey that could have been pulled from the headlines but it’s the destination and possible examination into psychological darkness that could be the alluring facet to this feature debut. Mareike Engelhardt had early support for her project winning the Arte Kino International Prize and she lassoed the likes of Megan Northam and Lubna Azabal to explore a power-dynamic set in inside a women’s shelter in Syria. Rabia moved into production late last year and wrapped up this month. Grand Huit’s Lionel Massol and Pauline Seigland produced the film.

Gist: A 19-year-old French woman travels to a country at war and finds herself trapped in a house full of women with a number of other young arrivals from all corners of the globe.…...

"A caftan must be able to survive the one who wears it." Strand has unveiled the official US trailer for an indie drama from France titled The Blue Caftan, which first premiered at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival last summer. This acclaimed Moroccan film has been playing at tons of festivals: Karlovy Vary, Toronto, Helsinki, Calgary, Zurich, Vancouver, Hamburg, and many more. Halim and Mina run a traditional caftan store in one of Morocco's oldest medinas, in the city of Salé (see Google Maps). In order to keep up with all of the demanding customers, they hire Youssef. The talented apprentice shows a passionate dedication in learning the art of embroidery and tailoring from Halim. Slowly Mina realizes how much her husband is moved by the presence of this young man. United in love, each will help the other face their fears. The film stars Lubna Azabal, Saleh Bakri, & Ayoub Missioui.

Europe is less dominant this year, with Asia, Latin America and Africa represented.

The Academy’s 2023 international feature film shortlist manages to be both predictable and refreshing at the same time.

It’s predictable in that the 15-strong shortlist contains most of the front runners expected to make it to this stage, including France’s Saint Omer, Austria’s Corsage, Denmark’s Holy Spider, Argentina’s Argentina, 1985, Belgium’s Close, South Korea’s Decision To Leave and Mexico’s Bardo. Among the few surprising omissions are Maryna Er Gorbach’s Ukrainian war drama Klondike and Carla Simon’s Berlinale winner Alcarràs.

Rebel Trailer — Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah‘s Rebel (2022) movie trailer has been released by Signature Entertainment. The Rebel trailer stars Amir El Arbi, Aboubakr Bensaihi, Younes Bouab, Kamal Moummad, and Lubna Azabal. Crew Adil El Arbi, Bilall Fallah, Kevin Meul, and Jan van Dyck wrote the screenplay for Rebel. Plot Synopsis Rebel‘s plot synopsis: “This [...]

Continue reading: Rebel (2022) Movie Trailer: Two Brothers Get Caught up in the Syrian Civil War...

"I'm just trying to survive. Like you." Signature Entertainment in the UK has revealed an official trailer for Rebel, the intense action thriller war film from the acclaimed Belgian-Moroccan filmmaking duo known as Adil & Bilall. This first premiered at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, and will be out in the UK next month, but with no US date set yet. Adil El Arbi & Bilall Fallah are known as talented action directors who broke into Hollywood with Bad Boys for Life, then Disney+'s "Ms. Marvel" series as well as Batgirl for WB (before they shelved it). This was made inbetween all that. Set in Brussels and Syria, Kamal resolves to change his life for the better, so he leaves to help war victims in Syria. But he is forced to join a militia and is left stranded in Raqqa, suddenly working for the bad guys. Back home, his...

Reported by our friends at Cineuropa, Arte France Cinéma are getting behind a quartet of new projects – a pair that are on our radar and another two that are news to us. Finally … we got an update on Jérémy Comte‘s directorial debut Paradise, which will go into production in the fall of 2023. The French Canadian filmmaker gave us the masterwork Sundance-winning short Fauve back in 2018. Another feature debut in the works, Mareike Engelhardt‘s Rabia (which we reported on when Megan Northam and Lubna Azabal were cast) will also receive support.

Thierry de Peretti‘s À son image, (which translates to “In His Image”) is loosely adapted from Jérôme Ferrari’s novel of the same name, the story (which was co-written by the filmmaker and Jeanne Aptekman) revolves around several moments in the life of Antonia – a photographer who’s the victim of a road traffic accident in Corsica – and her closest friends.

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.

Photo Gallery: Best International Feature Film Oscar Winners

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...

“Candy is better in France,” says a small boy to his brother in a flashback scene in For My Country (Pour La France), Rachid Hami’s personal drama premiering in Horizons at the Venice Film Festival. The boy’s Algerian family is considering moving to France, and his simplistic response sums up his innocent, optimistic view of his new home. But — as we have already discovered — France will bring tragedy to the family in this moving account based on Hami’s memories of his late younger brother.

As a young adult, Aïssa (Shaïn Boumedine) has enlisted in the prestigious military academy of Saint-Cyr, dreaming of serving the country he has become devoted to: France. But Aïssa dies during a fresher hazing initiation that takes place in freezing water.

His elder brother Ismaël (Karim Leklou) tries to comfort their distraught mother Nadia (Lubna Azabal) and to help her navigate the changing attitudes of officials,...

Strand Releasing has acquired all North American rights to Maryam Touzani’s “The Blue Caftan,” which world premiered at Cannes and won the Fipresci prize. The film, which is represented in international markets by Films Boutique, will have its North American premiere at Toronto in the Special Screenings section.

Touzani’s follow-up to Un Certain Regard title “Adam,” “The Blue Caftan” tells the story of Halim and Mina, a married couple running a traditional caftan store in one of Morocco’s oldest medinas. In order to keep up with the commands of the demanding customers, they hire Youssef. The talented apprentice shows an utmost dedication in learning the art of embroidery and tailoring from Halim. Slowly Mina realizes how much her husband is moved by the presence of the young man.

Produced by Nabil Ayouch, “The Blue Caftan” stars Lubna Azabal (“Incendies”) and Saleh Bakri.

Touzani said “The Blue Caftan...

Another feature film debut we’ve been tracking as of late (it was awarded some coin via the Arte Kino International Prize during Les Arcs Coproduction Village in late 2021) will indeed move into production later this year. Long established shorts filmmaker Mareike Engelhardt (who was an assistant director on Bozon’s Mrs. Hyde and Atef’s More Than Ever) will shoot Rabia in November into December and we’ve just learned that up-and-comer actress Megan Northam with topline the prison film alongside veteran Lubna Azabal.

To be filmed in Jordan and produced by France’s Films Grand Huit, this is about a 19-year-old named Rabia (Northam) who sets off for jihad in Syria and finds herself locked up in a women’s house with a hundreds of other young people from all over the world.…...

If the unmarked enemy aircraft, mirrored visors and carefully evasive language of Joseph Kosinksi’s “Top Gun: Maverick” tell us anything, it’s that Hollywood has learned to avoid political specifics in the delivery of grandstanding blockbuster entertainment. So one can be forgiven for coming to “Rebel” with hackles raised and offence-o-meters on red alert, as it milks Hollywoodish action-movie thrills (and even a few surreal musical numbers) from the highly charged scenario of one young Belgian’s recruitment into a Syrian Isis cell. But there’s an unabashed sincerity in how directing team Adil & Bilall realize their foolhardy ambition to make a serious-minded cautionary tale in the guise of a flashy thrill-ride. You might even start to root for “Rebel,” rather like you would a circus elephant can-canning across a minefield, and managing with surprising dexterity to go quite some distance without blowing itself to bits.

At first it...

It’s no secret that Morocco is one of the most homophobic places on Earth, punishing certain acts with prison sentences of up to three years. The secret, as far as Maryam Touzani’s “The Blue Caftan” is concerned, is that its main character is homosexual. The man, Halim (Salem Bakri), is devoted to both his religion and his wife, Mina (“Incendies” star Lubna Azabal). Together they own an old-fashioned garment shop in the town’s medina, where such stories almost certainly exist. Still, it takes equal measures of audacity and sensitivity to portray them on-screen, especially from a woman’s point of view.

Halim works as a maalem, or master tailor, struggling to keep the trade alive. These days, machines accomplish the work that artisans like Halim once did by hand, and apprentices are hard to find. Much of the film is dedicated to this disappearing craft: Touzani (“Adam...

When an aging couple operating a struggling Moroccan dress shop hire a dashing young apprentice, some of the first words out of his mouth are “I work fast.” That also describes the approach of “The Blue Caftan” director Maryam Touzani, who sets up its straightforward premise so quickly that you’d be forgiven for thinking you had the entire film figured out within five minutes. A closeted gay tailor, who fights with his wife about money, begins mentoring a young man who’s more beautiful than any item in his shop. Gee, what could possibly happen here?

But rather than use that premise to blow up the status quo, Touzani meticulously works backwards, illustrating that there was so much more to these relationships than we could have possibly guessed. Working with an intricacy that rivals that of the craftsman at the center of her film, the auteur crafts a surprisingly...

A tailor wrestles with his sexuality in The Blue Caftan, a tender Moroccan drama in Un Certain Regard from Maryam Touzani. Also a subtle portrait of a marriage, it slowly unveils the issues of its characters with an empathetic, admiring gaze: these are two people who are highly principled and strive to be thoughtful, even if one of them does not always succeed.

Halim (Saleh Bakri) is a man of few words, and they are spoken softly when he does so. He takes great care with his work, and patiently explains how time consuming it is to handmake a quality caftan to demanding customers. His wife Mina (Lubna Azabal) sometimes works with him, and also demonstrates diplomacy with their customers. Once they’ve shut up shop, she imitates them and makes her husband laugh: the playful humor in their relationship is one of the most charming elements of this film.

Maryam Touzani’s has its Cannes premiere later this week for Films Boutique.

Maryam Touzani’s Un Certain Regard entry The Blue Caftan has sold to multiple territories in advance of its Cannes premiere later this week for Films Boutique.

It will be distributed in France (Ad Vitam), Benelux (Cineart), Spain (Karma), Japan (Longride), Italy (Movies Inspired), Switzerland (Filmcoopi), Austria (Thimfilm), Denmark (Camera Film), Greece (Danaos), Israel (Nachshon Films) and Baltics (A-one).

Lubna Azabal, Saleh Bakri, and Ayoub Missioui star in the film about a man and woman who run a traditional caftan store in one of Morocco’s oldest...

Moroccan 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 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,...

Films Boutique has acquired four films set to world premiere at Cannes, including Albert Serra (“The Death of Louis Xiv”)’s “Pacifiction” which will compete in the 75th edition’s Official Selection.

The Berlin-based international sales banner has also acquired rising Morrocan helmer Maryam Touzani (“Adam”)’s “The Blue Caftan” and Costa Rican director Ariel Escalante Meza’s “Domingo and the Mist” which will both play in Un Certain Regard; as well as Portuguese filmmaker João Pedro Rodrigues (“The Ornithologist”)’s “Will-o’-The-Wisp,” set for Directors’ Fortnight.

“Pacifiction” stars Cesar-winning French actor Benoit Magimel (“Peaceful”) as a calculating French government official working in the French Polynesian island of Tahiti. While investigating on a mysterious submarine, he navigates the high end ’establishment,’ and mingles with locals in underground venues.

Serra was last in Cannes with his 2019 feature film “Liberté” which won the jury prize at Un Certain Regard.”‘Pacifiction’ is a...