Moroccan Film "The Blue Caftan" Receives 15-Minute Ovation at Cannes

Maryam Touzani and Lubna Azabal were expecting anything but for the film "The Blue Caftan" to be applauded for a quarter of an hour after its screening at the Cannes Film Festival. The director and all the actors were moved by the welcome given to this feature film in which the Belgian plays Mina, a strong-willed woman married to Halim, with whom she runs a traditional caftan shop in the medina of Salé, Morocco, reports La Dernière Heure.

The couple have always lived with Halim’s secret, his homosexuality that he has learned to silence. Mina’s illness and the arrival of a young apprentice will upset this balance. United in their love, each will help the other to face their fears. "I needed to talk about the gay community. I had talked to Maryam about this after what happened in 2019 in Cannes. I had kissed Niserine Erradi, who is like my little sister, and it had caused a huge stir in Morocco," explains Lubna Azabal, interviewed by the Belga agency.

"I found that I had not defended my ideas enough. I had rather tended to apologize for offending the Moroccan people rather than to express myself and it is true that I really did not digest it. I wanted a right of reply and to say what I thought about the treatment of the LGBTQ community in general and to apologize to it," continues the actress.

"Maryam then told me that she would like me to read a script through which I could perhaps make artistic apologies. I read the script and I fell in love with the character of Mina but also with the story as a whole."

The story of her character moved her for personal reasons. "I had just lost my best friend to lung cancer. I had seen his evolution, the disease. There was something that overwhelmed me in Mina. And then I also knew in my life what it is to love with unconditional love to the point of hurting oneself," recounts the Belgian of Moroccan origin, who discovered the final version of the film on Thursday, at the same time as the public.

The actress had to make certain sacrifices in order to play her role to perfection, such as following a low-calorie diet with a dietitian. "I didn’t want to play the disease. I wanted my body to embody it, through my face, my fatigue. I lost eight kilos. [...] I wanted to reach that sparrow state. That’s what I saw in my friend who I recently lost."

After her collaboration with Maryam Touzani, Lubna Azabal announces the filming, next August, of a Belgian feature film and is also working in parallel on a project with Nicolas Besos and on another with Karim Leklou and Laurent Lafitte.