Q&A - Moroccan Filmmaker Maryam Touzani Opens the Málaga Film Festival

This interview was originally publisehd by the Alliance of Women Film Journalists.

Tangier-born writer-actor-director Maryam Touzani says that with her new film Calle Málaga, she wanted to “celebrate the beauty of aging and the freedom that can come with aging.” The story turns on a 70-something woman, played by Spanish veteran Carmen Maura, who insists on remaining in her home in Tangier—against all odds. In doing so, she remakes her life, finds new love and reinforces her connections with her Moroccan roots, the place where she was born and raised as part of a Spanish immigrant community.

The subject was personal for Touzani, whose own blended Moroccan-Spanish family gave inspiration to Calle Málaga. I really wanted to pay tribute to the Spanish community that a lot of people don't know about,” she says. “I wanted to explore this theme of attachment, of belonging. What does it really mean to belong? What makes up who we are—the spaces, the people, our houses, our street.”

Touzani has directed three feature films, and all three have been selected to represent Morocco at the Oscars—despite dealing with difficult and sometimes even taboo subjects in Moroccan society, like homosexuality (The Blue Caftan) and unwanted pregnancy out of wedlock (Adam). Her first two features premiered at Cannes, while Calle Málaga won the Audience Award at Venice last September.

“I've always been attracted by characters that are made invisible, or somehow put aside or erased,” she notes. Her films feature women, like Maura's María Angeles in Calle Málaga, who take control of their own lives and destinies, often outside of society’s accepted boundaries. “The place of women in public… is not necessarily the same power that the women will have in houses,” Touzani admits. She conveys this duality in her frequent use of interior settings and chiaroscuro lighting, contrasting golden-lit interiors off the bright Mediterranean light outside.

Now, Calle Málaga is the opening film at the Málaga Film Festival, running in the Spanish Mediterranean city from March 6 to 15. AWFJ sat down with Touzani in Madrid before opening night to talk about the film, her exceptional career and whether movies have the power to change society. Here is that conversation, edited for length and clarity.

All of your films have been selected to represent Morocco at the Oscars. Does that surprise you, considering your films deal with difficult subjects?

It’s not something that has anything to do with the filmmaker themselves. It’s the trajectory of the film. When you have a film that opens at an important festival and there is something positive happening around it, that makes it easier for the film to get selected to represent its country… It’s an independent committee that watches the films… But once you have a start in an important festival and there is good press around the film, it’s always helpful.

You've taken your films to festivals all over the world. Do reactions differ in different countries?

What I've noticed and what is very heartwarming is that, for instance talking about Calle Málaga, the audience response was warm in the same manner in countries that were very different and cultures that were very different. And that's heartwarming, especially with a film like this that's even more personal than the rest… Globally, what I felt is that at the end of the day, we are brought together by the same emotions, and reactions generally are quite similar. I think that when there is a human connection with a film, at the end of the day, that brings us together wherever we are from.

One of the things that I wrote about this story is that it's a cliche that older women become kind of invisible when they age, and I thought the character of María used that invisibility as an asset. Can you talk a little bit about what it means to be a woman in Moroccan society, and if that invisibility is useful in some ways?

I think that being a woman in Moroccan society is not very different from being a woman in any other society, honestly, when you bring it down to the core. I think there's something very common everywhere. But it's true that I've always been attracted by characters that are made invisible, or somehow put aside or erased.

And it's true that here I also wanted to show and celebrate these aging bodies. His, and especially hers, because I think that women's bodies in cinema are really cast aside. We're expected to age in a certain manner, and the reality is not that. So, it’s just not shown. And I really wanted to show this woman celebrating her body. She’s the one that invites him into her life, undresses him, undresses herself. And it's really undressing herself physically, but it's also saying: this is who I am. I stand tall. I'm proud of my aging body. I'm proud of all these marks that the years have left on me. And my body is beautiful and I'm beautiful the way I am, and I'm proud to show it. I want him to look at me, but I want to show myself the way I am.

To just be proud of that and not have to hide and not have to be what somebody else expects, and just really celebrate the beauty of aging and the freedom that can come with aging as well. because I think that aging can be something very liberating. Whereas in our societies, we put older people into boxes of how we're supposed to act, what we're supposed to be. All these expectations that are thrown upon us and that are just like shackles, right? And I really want María to break all these shackles and break free and say, no, I'm a woman. I'm almost 80. I choose to show my body. I choose to age the way I want to age. I want to have that freedom.

Carmen Maura has actually said that in a lot of interviews, that she's ‘free’ now. She said if you had asked her five or 10 years ago to take her clothes off, she wouldn't have.

Yeah, and I think that's a beautiful thing as well with aging. It’s the power that can come with it. It's the strength and the beauty that can come with it. I think the beauty in aging, we don't see that in our societies. For me, that was also why I wanted to film these skins up close, to show these wrinkles. Because for me, they're these beautiful marks that life has left upon us, a life that we've had the privilege to live. And not everybody has that privilege of growing old. As I grow older, and as I lose people that have maybe not reached that age, I realize how precious it is.

Something that I see across your films, even your short films, is that you shoot a lot of interiors, and it feels like women kind of dominate those spaces. You often have women talking to each other from their balconies in your films.

What you're saying is very interesting because it's true that we are, at the end of the day, in a very matriarchal society and women do dominate interiors. There's a lot of respect for mothers, for grandmothers. What a mother has to say in Moroccan society is extremely, extremely important… It’s interesting regarding the place of women in public, which is not necessarily the same power that the women will have in houses.

Touzani went on to talk about her Spanish-Moroccan family, growing up in a “double culture” and speaking Spanish at home with her mother and grandmother.

Is some of that in the character of María?

It definitely is because my grandmother was a very rebellious woman with a lot of personality, a lot of character and quite a lot of humor. And this long white hair as well—she used to put up in a bun, but it was really long. I remember as a child—she passed when I was 12—I was very, very close to her. I had my bedroom, but I would sleep in her bedroom, sometimes even in her bed, cuddled to her. I loved her so much, but I remember I was just fascinated by her. I remember being fascinated by her skin, by her wrinkles… I just loved observing her. And her energy—she passed at 82, but she had so much energy. I never saw her take a nap ever in her life until the last month where she got sick… She had this energy, like María Angeles in the film, and I think that did really inspire me also for the writing of this character.

So you were very familiar with the Spanish immigrant community in Tangier?

I was very familiar with it because of course my grandmother had a lot of friends from this community… They were all very close. And in Calle Málaga, what was interesting as well… there was this mixture of Jewish, Christians, Muslims and they would exchange recipes, be together on the holidays, at feasts, and there was this kind of living together that was very, very peaceful. It was beautiful, and I always heard about this. That's why the film is called Calle Málaga [though it’s actually filmed on a different street]—I really wanted to pay tribute to the Spanish community that a lot of people don't know about…

Some of her [my grandmother’s] friends whose kids had left—they were older, and they decided not to leave and wanted to stay in Tangier. I saw their attachment, this visceral attachment to their city. And as a child, as a young woman, it's something that really hit a chord inside me. I really was very sensitive to what made this attachment so strong.

I think that's why I wanted to explore this theme of attachment, of belonging. What does it really mean to belong? What makes up who we are—the spaces, the people, our houses, our street.

And it's also because I was so close to the Spanish community and I saw the Spanish community die off little by little—for the majority, because their children left, grandchildren are born abroad, etc.—and then this bond disappears… It was really also a tribute to these people. I think memory is very important… Through the film, I also wanted to keep these people alive somehow, because they are people that were there, that existed, that had feelings that were rooted in this land.

Touzani spoke about the film being a way for her to maintain a connection with her mother, who passed away suddenly at the age of 72. “I really needed to feel that she was close to me. It was something soothing about the language and also the things that you see in the film,” like certain cultural aspects, foods María cooks, etc. They “represented home and going back home to Tangier without my mom.” Calle Málaga was her first feature film shot in Tangier and in Spanish.

Your other two films were not filmed in Tangier, right?

I think that I unconsciously wrote the film in Tangier because I knew it was the only way for me to force myself to go back there and face her [my mother’s] absence and face these beautiful memories, but without her, you know? And try to find peace and try to make sense and continue loving the city. So, it was very hard. Shooting was very hard because every street corner was a memory.

It sounds cathartic.

Yeah. What I'm living is still part of this whole process. When I go to Málaga in a few days, my Spanish family is going to be there and they're going to discover the film, and that's also part of it. So that’s why it was [filmed] in Spanish. And it was very interesting, very soothing for me to find myself on set surrounded by Spanish, because a big part of my team was Spanish and of course the dialogues were in Spanish. Just to be there and to hear Spanish around me was something that felt comforting.

Do you ever face backlash in Morocco for the topics that you have chosen to make movies about?

Have I ever? Yes, but from individuals that don't agree or that maybe don’t accept… For instance, in The Blue Caftan, if I did come across these kinds of reactions, which I did, it really made me realize even more how important and essential it was that this film exists in Morocco and that it be screened. It was opened in theaters, and this was the first time ever that a film that talks openly about homosexuality was screened in theaters…

I think it means that there is a desire for an opening of dialogue, which is really what I want to do as well with the film. It's just being able to open a conversation, to be able to create a debate, to contribute in some way to making things advance. So, any backlash that I could have received, I never see it in a negative way. I always see it in a positive way because I always think that if there is some kind of backlash, it means that there is a necessity as well.

Do you think film has the power to change society?

Oh, I definitely think so. Otherwise, I wouldn't be making films. It's true! I think that it has a power to contribute, at least, to a significant change, because I think cinema is something that is accessible to everybody. It’s something that can reach you easily. And it gives you access, through your emotions, to a reality that is not necessarily yours, that you don't necessarily know, that you think maybe you don't agree with, but then you plunge into the life of a character for an hour and a half or two hours or whatever it may be, and you're in a completely different reality and your emotions take over. It's not your intellect. It's not your preconceptions, it's not all these barriers that you've necessarily created, and it can break through, in a manner, and… create a dialogue between your heart and your mind. And that can help change your vision.

I've had a lot of people come up to me, for instance, after The Blue Caftan, and tell me things that were extremely touching about their preconceived ideas, about all they thought they never wanted or they were completely closed to, and how they saw things differently now. And for me, these are the biggest rewards… I think that cinema does have a way to contribute to changing things. And if you change just one person's perception, and then just one other person, and then one other person, at the end of the day, it can make a difference.

Images courtesy of Strand Releasing