Maryam Touzani, 'With Calle Malaga, I'm returning to my roots'

(by Valentina Maresca) (ANSAmed) - ROME, NOVEMBER 6 - The desire to love that never dies with the youthful years, the coexistence of two different communities, the biography that becomes a cinematographic work are the directors of 'Calle Malaga', the director's new film Moroccan Maryam Touzani opens the XXXI edition of MedFilm Festival, in Rome from today until November 16th, and participate in the Official Cupid & Psyche Competition. For Touzani it is a return to the Roman kermesse, which he already participated with 'The Blue Caftan'. "It's a festival I I feel close to him for the values ​​he defends", he told ANSAmed. MedFilm "tries to celebrate and preserve cultural diversity through independent cinema and places the human at the centre of his concerns. These are values ​​to which I fully adhere, and I can't wait to be part of it," he added, looking back at the genesis of Calle Malaga, "born from pain and lack" after the sudden death of his mother in February 2023. "I kept talking to her in my head in Spanish, because it was the language that bound us together on a daily basis. That's why the movie is in Spanish. I needed to continue feel this language, and the character of Maria Angeles, very inspired by my Spanish grandmother, Juana, who had moved to Tangier when he was 7 years old, he imposed himself on me in a way natural". Calle Malaga is the name of the street where it was Touzani's grandmother's apartment is located and is therefore her mother grew up, and the director tried to get closer to her in a part of her life that she did not witness. "I think that cinema has the virtue of making things eternal. When I write there is no reflection beforehand, not I never know where I'm going. I let myself be carried away by emotions. through my characters," Touzani said again. "I I like this, letting myself be carried away by something that comes from within and transcends me. There is something liberating for me, and in Calle Malaga I felt this with particular force." Speaking of old age, one of the themes of the film, "I think simply that it is beautiful and that getting old is a luxury, a luck. Every wrinkle that appears on our face is a consecration of life that we have the right to savor, with its share of joys and sorrows. I believe that old age is a taboo and that too often we try to hide it, to push her away. And that when it is told in the cinema, often It's done with a sad look. In Calle Malaga I wanted to to tell another old age, one that can also be overflowing with life and escapes the shackles that are often sought impose them". Through Maria Angeles, in fact, the director has wanted to "question society's perspective on aging, the expectations and prejudices that surround it derive, and I wanted to celebrate life and love, too often perceived as bordering on respectable in old age. As if, having reached old age, one no longer had the right to desire and sexuality becomes vicious, unhealthy, suffocate. Maria Angeles rediscovers her sexuality in old age and enjoys it. This rediscovery is as beautiful as natural". In Touzani's new work, the Moroccan city of Tangier it becomes a metaphor for the peaceful coexistence of different cultures: "I have wanted to pay homage to this unknown community too Spanish Tangier, which is gradually disappearing, and explore the sense of belonging, but also tell that ability to live together that is so natural, even today. Of course, the current state of the world scares me. The way the barriers are rising they are more and more frightening, but I remain optimistic because I believe in human beings." Touzani is now busy writing a new film whose stage does not allow her to anticipate anything, but she has announced the interpretation of a character in the next feature film which she co-wrote with her husband, director Nabil Ayouch. (ANSAmed).