Meriem Bennani, Fatim-Zahra Alami, Yto Barrada, Dounia Berrada
Incorporating elements of autofiction and video art, the surprisingly sexy, formally adventurous Bouchra is the feature debut from acclaimed visual artists Meriem Bennani and Orian Barki (the duo behind the 2020 web series 2 Lizards).
Wrestling with writer’s block for her first film, Bouchra, a queer Moroccan jackal living in New York, starts having difficult phone calls with her mother in Casablanca that begin to influence the project. Navigating the precarity of an artist’s life, the rift in her identity between her worlds in the US and Morocco and an array of friendships and romantic interests, Bouchra’s emotional reckoning with her mother and herself forms her path to expression.
Aesthetically bold and entirely distinctive, Bouchra muses on queerness, creativity and the North African diaspora with intelligence and rigour.