‘Casablanca Beats’ Director Nabil Ayouch Set to Make French Debut With Psychological Thriller Starring Virginie Efira, Maryam Touzani (EXCLUSIVE)

Nabil Ayouch, who sits on this year’s Berlin Film Festival jury, is set to make his French-language debut with a female-led psychological and sensual thriller starring Virginie Efira and Maryam Touzani.

The French-Moroccan filmmaker and producer presented his latest film, “Everybody Loves Touda,” at the Cannes Film Festival this year, and it was Morocco’s official Oscar entry. Ayouch’s best-known credits include “Casablanca Beats,” which competed at Cannes in 2021, as well as the critically acclaimed “Much Loved.”

His next film, which will start production during the last quarter of this year, will see Ayouch work for the first time with Efira, one of France’s biggest and most bankable stars. While the movie’s plot remains under wraps, Ayouch says Efira will play a woman adopting a child in Morocco. It’s film that questions adoption and a couple faced with moral choices.

Ayouch will work in French but the movie will be set in Morocco and will reteam the helmer with his wife, Touzani, who starred in “Razzia,” and has been working with him as filmmaker and co-screenwriter as well. Touzani’s latest directorial effort, “The Blue Caftan,” a drama revolving around the love between a closeted man and his wife, world premiered at Cannes in 2022 where it won the Fipresci prize, and sold more admissions overseas than any other Moroccan film in recent history.

Like his previous films, Ayouch’s next movie will have a feminist dimension but will also have a “strong thriller element, as well as will be thought-provoking,” Ayouch said.

Ayouch will be producing the film through his company Ali n’Productions, along with Les Films du Nouveau Monde, and is currently talking to potential partners.