Marrakech – At the 22nd edition of the Marrakech International Film Festival (FIFM), Moroccan filmmaker Meryam Touzani spoke with disarming honesty about the instinctive nature of her creative process.
Her film “Calle Málaga”, which follows the story of an elderly Spanish woman in Tangier confronting the possible loss of her longtime home, was screened at this year’s FIFM.
The film already earned the Audience Award in Venice’s Spotlight section and was selected by Morocco’s film commission to represent the country in the Best International Feature Film race for the 2026 Oscars.
Asked by Morocco World News (MWN) about the origins of her stories and the way she turns emotion into concrete visual form, she admitted, “That’s a good question, because I don’t know myself.”
For Touzani, writing never starts with structure or intention. “It always sparks from a need, from an emotion that translates naturally as the writing evolves,” she said.
Her ideas take shape through sensations – visual, sonic, and tactile. “The sound is there, the colors are there, the textures are there. It’s something very, very emotional for me… it’s never something rational.”
Sources of inspiration that surface over time
Touzani described inspiration as something that accumulates silently, forming layers long before she begins to write.
“An inspiration, an encounter with a place, with a person… things that will inscribe themselves inside me,” she explained to MWN.
These impressions may linger for years. “Sometimes for years without me hardly even being aware of it. And little by little, they will rise to the surface for a certain reason, because life makes that happen.”
Giving space to characters who are rarely seen
Central to her work is a desire to give visibility to those often overlooked. “A lot of times they are characters that I think don’t have necessarily a voice, that we don’t necessarily see and that I’m touched by,” she said.
Their presence in her films is not symbolic but essential. “I feel that there are stories that need to exist because they need to be told.”
Through these characters, themes emerge organically. “Of course, there are thematics that come along. I believe in dialogue. I believe that cinema is a true vehicle for dialogue, for debating,” she added.
Cinema as a space for confrontation and reflection
Touzani’s films draw from what unsettles, angers, or moves her. “The things that hurt me, that make me angry, but also that inspire me and make me happy, I want to bring up and talk about,” she said. The subjects that trouble her most often become the ones she feels compelled to address.
She sees cinema as a force capable of shifting perception. “Cinema is also here to shake up things sometimes, to make us question our realities or to make us question our perception of life and to maybe see things differently.”
A personal sanctuary for self-exploration
Despite her broad reach, Touzani still views cinema as an intimate domain. “It’s my only space of expression, my only place of expression,” she explained.
Each project becomes a form of introspection. “Film after film I also learn a lot of things about myself… about why certain characters exist, about why certain stories take a certain course.”
Her work remains grounded in lived experience and observation. “It’s also being in touch with my environment and what it gives to me,” she reflected.
What follows is the attempt to transpose those emotions into cinematic language: “Being able to translate emotions into words and into images.”