THE BLUE CAFTAN FILM
The Blue Caftan
2022, 118 mins, France/Morocco/Belgium/Denmark
Subtitled
Venue: Foxlowe Arts Centre
7.45pm - 9.45pm
£7.00
More information and booking: HERE - tickets can be booked online, purchased from the Foxlowe café from early September, and available on the door if the film is not sold out.
The eponymous Blue Caftan is a thing of beauty meticulously stitched and embroidered by Halim, a maalem (master tailor) in one of Morocco's oldest medinas. Demanding customers and his wife, Mina's failing health cause them to hire Youssef, a talented apprentice. His presence challenges the work and home life of Halim and Mina.
If you want more information: Official trailer
Interview with the director
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 actually grew up seeing my mother wearing this beautiful black caftan that is identical to the one in the film. And this is the caftan really, that inspired the fact that Halim would be a captain maker. As a little girl I would see her every time on big occasions wear this beautiful garment. It particularly fascinated me because of the very intricate work and she always explained how it had been made, the time it had taken, all the artists’ work behind it. I tried it on so many times growing up, as a little child and as an adolescent, but it was always too long, too large, too big. And then one day it fit me and so she gave it to me.
Maryam Touzani: 'What motivates me, what touches me the most profoundly is always the intimate stories of characters that can't exist openly'
Maryam Touzani: 'What motivates me, what touches me the most profoundly is always the intimate stories of characters that can't exist openly' Photo: Portrait Studio/Carlyle Routh
“I remember the look in her eyes and the look in my father's eyes when I wore it for the first time when I tried it on. It was just a beautiful, beautiful emotion. I had a feeling I was wearing a part of her, a part of her souvenirs, a part of her life and things that she had experienced. This garment was so emotionally full. When she gave it to me, I felt the beauty of tradition, the beauty of transmission, because it's something that had been given to me by her. And it carried so much within it.
“So, unconsciously Halim became a caftan maker. I did not know that I was going to make an identical caftan to my mum's. My mum’s was black, this one was blue but the work is exactly the same. I began by looking at a lot of different embroideries. It took me months - and every time I was getting closer to the one I had actually grown up with. And one day I said, ‘I'm going to just take it out’. Because I have it in my closet, it's like a treasure.
“When I took it out, I realised this is basically what I had been looking for and I was circling back to it.”
The film celebrates the work needed to make such a delicate garment, so it was ironic when Touzami took it to a master craftsman who asked if, because she needed multiple caftan’s whether she wanted them to be machine-made in order for it to be quicker.
“I said no,” she says. “I had taken my time to plan things in advance and I really wanted every bit of it to be handmade.”
Touzani adds: “As for the blue. I mean, I didn't realise at the beginning why it was blue. But it's true that when I write it's emotional, I never plan, it's not something conscious. Almost from the very start this caftan was that particular blue. I think it's just because this colour makes me feel there's this feeling of freedom. When you look at the horizon, when you look at the sky, the ocean, there's immensity there, it's like all these different possibilities and the colour blue inspires that feeling very strongly. So I think that's naturally why it became blue.”
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