Fez — Moroccan director and actor Mohamed Nadif is returning to cinema with a new feature titled “Heir of Secrets,” a film adapted from Fatiha Morchid’s novel “Liberating Desire.” 

The movie is scheduled to screen in Moroccan theaters starting April 10 after its world premiere at the Cinémania International Film Festival in Montreal. 

In an interview with SNRT News, Nadif said the film is “a journey of delayed pain” centered on the relationship between a father and son. He described the project as a story of transformation and reconciliation with the self, built around the emotional weight of long-buried family truths. 

The story follows Farid, played in adulthood by Younes Bouab, whose life is upended after he receives a mysterious letter from Montreal revealing family secrets hidden for 40 years. Nadif said the discovery forces Farid to rethink his old beliefs about his father’s abandonment of the family and pushes him into a journey that blends memory, identity, and exile. 

From “Liberating Desire” to the screen

Nadif said what first drew him to Morchid’s novel was not only its psychological and existential depth, but also the human core of the father-son bond. He described adapting the book into a screenplay as a major challenge, especially since it was his first time turning a literary text into a film script.

He said the adaptation was developed in close collaboration with Morchid and screenwriter Olivier Cosmac to preserve the spirit of the novel while giving it a cinematic language rooted in silence, detail, and visual tension. 

Nadif also said the film carries, at its core, a story of hope and love, even as it explores the effect of family secrets on people’s lives and choices in a contemporary Morocco caught between restrictive traditions and a strong desire for liberation.

“Heir of Secrets” is Nadif’s third feature as a director, following “The Women in Block J” and “Andalousie, Mon Amour.” The cast includes Moussaab Nasser as Farid in childhood, Yasser Kezzouz in adolescence, and Younes Bouab in adulthood, alongside Nadia Kounda, Nesrine Radi, Asmaa El Hadrami, Nour Talbi, Mounia Zahzam, and Mehdi Bahmed, who plays the father.

Between Morocco and Canada

Nadif shot the film between Morocco and Canada, using Montreal as a major visual setting. He said the Canadian locations included streets, restaurants, a hospital, and an apartment with a distinctly Montreal feel, while the University of Montreal was used as a substitute location for airport scenes because of technical and logistical constraints.

He added that the Canadian settings were chosen deliberately , to reflect the structure of the novel and help express the characters’ movement between Morocco and the wider world. This international dimension broadens the film’s emotional scope , linking personal questions of family and memory to themes of migration and identity.

Nadif said the project took five years to complete, covering writing, script development, casting, filming, and final editing. 

He also noted that although he had stepped back from directing for a time, he remained active in cinema through production and acting, including work on “A Summer in Boujad” and “Quitte ou Double.”