‘Bouchra’ Brings Twin Cities Arab Film Festival to a Close

The film follows a Moroccan filmmaker living in New York as she navigates creative struggles, her romantic life, and her identity while staying connected with her mother in Casablanca through phone calls.

Aya El Maguiri

September 28, 2026

Casablanca – Moroccan artist Meriem Bennani and Israeli filmmaker Orian Barki’s animated feature closed the 20th Twin Cities Arab Film Festival on September 27 at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

The film follows Bouchra, a 35-year-old Moroccan filmmaker living in New York who finds herself stuck in a creative rut. A phone call with her mother, Aicha, in Casablanca brings old memories and unresolved feelings back to the surface.

A mother-daughter story

Through their long-distance conversations, Bouchra explores family, identity, queerness, creativity, love, and the emotional distance that can grow between people who still care deeply about each other.

The film draws from Bennani’s own conversations with her mother. Instead of presenting them as a conventional family drama, Bennani and Barki reimagined the relationship through 3D animation and a world populated by anthropomorphic animals.

Bouchra herself appears as an animated Moroccan canid, while her mother lives in Casablanca. The playful visual world creates some distance from the personal story while keeping the emotional conversations at its center.

The film also carries Bennani’s signature interest in mixing reality, fiction, digital culture, and visual experimentation. Its creative roots go back to “2 Lizards,” the Instagram series Bennani and Barki created during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Beyond Morocco’s borders

The festival’s closing program also included Kamal Aljafari’s “With Hasan in Gaza,” screened earlier that afternoon. A closing reception followed before “Bouchra” took over the Walker Cinema that evening.

After the screening, Bennani and Barki joined the audience remotely for a conversation about the film.

The closing-night screening brought “Bouchra” back to a space centered on Arab and SWANA cinema, giving the film another opportunity to connect with audiences beyond Morocco.

From Toronto to the Twin Cities

The film made its major premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2025 before screening at festivals including the New York Film Festival, Chicago International Film Festival, La Roche-sur-Yon, and ICA London.

The film has also collected several festival honors along the way, including the Grand Prix at the Festival International du Film Indépendant de Bordeaux, the Gold Q-Hugo at the Chicago International Film Festival, and the Ingmar Bergman International Debut Award at the Göteborg Film Festival.

That growing festival run has helped “Bouchra” find audiences across different film and art communities while keeping its Moroccan roots firmly at the center.

And perhaps that is what makes the film’s journey fitting. A story that begins with a phone call between New York and Casablanca has now traveled from one festival screen to another, carrying a very personal Moroccan story along with it.