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Maryam Touzani is a courageous woman and loves to make things happen. After short films and documentaries on prostitution in Morocco or the exploitation of children and its impactful interpretation in "Razzia", co-written with her husband Nabil Ayouch, the Moroccan director presented her first feature film in official selection at the Cannes Film Festival. "Adam" tells in a novel way and with great empathy the hell of a pregnant and unmarried young woman in disarray. One day, Samia knocks on the door of Abla, pastry chef and mother of an 8 year old girl. Interview with Maryam Touzani.
RFI : During the premiere of your film at the Cannes Film Festival, you spoke about a fundamental need that triggered your desire to shoot your first feature film. What upset you ?
Maryam Touzani : It was the discovery of motherhood by myself. When I started writing this film, I began to feel my child moving inside me. Fifteen years ago, I met a young single mother whom my parents had welcomed. I lived all this with her: the experience of motherhood and then this child she had to give up. At the time, it deeply shocked and marked me. Fifteen years later, I felt in my flesh and understood many things about motherhood and what this woman could feel. There, I had a need to tell.
Adam is the story of Samia, a young pregnant woman, totally lost. Through her, you ask the question of the scandal of the situation of unmarried women in Morocco who find themselves pregnant. What are we talking about ?
The worst thing that can happen to a woman in Morocco is to be pregnant without being married. Until 2004, children born out of wedlock were invisible, that is, they had no identity. There, it has changed, but even if they have an identity, we know that they are children born out of weddings. It's a burden they carry all their life. They are always pointed out. It's very difficult. You can not imagine. For moms, it's hell.
Adam's story takes place in a pastry shop. Samia shows Abla who welcomed her how to knead the dough : substantially, gently and deeply. In the film, it becomes a metaphor for life. Have you found common points between a pastry chef and a filmmaker ?
To mix the dough, gently and sensually, it is especially also to take one's time to feel, to make things ripen. Do not do things by automatism. Of course, I feel a connection with that, because I am someone who is very much in the emotion, the feeling, who lets himself be carried by that. And then, there is also this time of maturation that things can be expressed without being forced.
Filming the characters very closely, to make the scenes last, is this your signature as a director ?
You could say that. What I love is the intimate. I love the inside of the characters. I want to be able to dig, to enter under their skin, to penetrate their soul, to tell them in the most "real" possible way, the closest to what they are internally.
This is the little girl Warda who is the most clairvoyant person in your film that creates a place of choice for children. Among other things, there are two incredible sequences giving the feeling of watching the longest scenes ever shot in the history of cinema with a baby. This is the pride of the film ?
For me, it was essential to discover this child really. We, as people who watch the film at the same time as this woman who discovers her child. I wanted to take the time we could stop and be in what she saw in detail, in what she felt. For me, it was very important to get to really go inside, to see what motherhood was. I wanted to let this scene impose its rhythm and also let this child impose his rhythm on him too.
You are a director, this is your first film. Do you feel part of a certain wave of women directors and a revival of cinema in the Maghreb ?
I feel like I'm one of those people who want to say things, to really say it. And who do not want to be stopped in their tracks. Yes, of course, there is a revival of Maghreb cinema, there is a bubbling, a desire to be able to tell each other, to tell our own stories with our words to us. And it is very beautiful to have this observation and to say to ourselves: yes, we also belong to this cinematographic universe.
The reception at the Cannes Film Festival was triumphant. How will the film be seen in Morocco ?
The reception in Cannes was very touching, very moving. It's a moment that I will not forget. In Morocco, I think he will be well received. After, I am someone very optimistic. It may be causing debate and that's good. This can only be positive. Beyond that, I think the film is about the human and there are many people who want to be able to talk about it too, to talk about the cinema, about the human. I think he will be well received.