The Blue Caftan

The Blue Caftan (أزرق القفطان, released in France as Le Bleu du caftan) is a 2022 Moroccan Arabic-language drama film directed by Maryam Touzani, and written by Touzani with the collaboration of Nabil Ayouch. It depicts a woman and her closeted gay husband, who run a caftan store in the medina of Salé, Morocco, and hire a young man as an apprentice.

The film premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the FIPRESCI Prize in its section. Also, the Moroccan Cinema Center (Centre cinématographique marocain) chose The Blue Caftan to represent Morocco in the 2023 Oscars shortlist in the International Feature Film category.

Cast

 * Lubna Azabal as Mina
 * Saleh Bakri as Halim
 * Ayoub Missioui as Youssef

Release
The film was selected to be screened in the Un Certain Regard section of the 75th Cannes Film Festival, where it had its world premiere on 26 May 2022.

The film was released in Morocco on 22 February 2023 by Megarama Distribution. Ad Vitam Distribution released the film in France on 22 March 2023. It was also released in Belgium on 29 March 2023 by Cinéart. Danish distributor Camera Film released the film on 7 September 2023.

International sales are handled by Films Boutique.

Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 96% based on 54 reviews, with an average rating of 8.3/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "A love story shaped by some surprising contours, The Blue Caftan surveys the hidden heart with compassion and grace." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 83 out of 100, based on 16 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". The Blue Caftan received an average rating of 3.8 out of 5 stars on the French website AlloCiné, based on 27 reviews.