Bouchra

Co-presented by the Arab Film & Media Institute (AFMI)

Deeply felt, surprisingly sexy, and formally adventurous, the feature debut from acclaimed visual artists Meriem Bennani and Orian Barki (best known together from their 2020 web series 2 Lizards) forges new ground that “will make it a classic of queer cinema for years to come” (Next Best Picture). With a lived-in granularity and unmistakable visual style, Bouchra is a singular portrait effortlessly toeing the line between documentary, visual art, and resonant family drama.

Wrestling with writer’s block for her first film, Bouchra, a queer Moroccan jackal living in NYC starts having difficult yet overdue phone calls with her mother in Casablanca. Balancing the precarity of working as an artist in the city, the rift in her identity between her two homes, and an array of friendships and romantic interests, Bouchra’s emotional reckoning with her mother and herself becomes her path to expression.