Irish Film Institute -THE BLUE CAFTAN

THE BLUE CAFTAN

Director: MARYAM TOUZANI

122 mins, France-Morocco-Belgium, 2022, Digital, Subtitled, F-Rated

This film opens on Friday May 5th 2023. Tickets will go on sale on Tuesday, May 2nd.

Halim (Saleh Bakri) and Mina (Lubna Azabal) run a traditional caftan store in one of Morocco’s oldest medinas. Halim is a maalem, a master tailor specialising in bespoke cutting and artistic embroidery, which means that the process of preparing garments is slow and expensive. In order to keep up with customer demands, they hire Youssef (Ayoub Missioui), a talented young apprentice who is eager to learn everything he can from his new mentor. He is also, as Mina suspects, a potentially disruptive force; Halim is secretly gay, and engages in clandestine encounters at the local hammam, a fact Mina is aware of, and the couple share a mutually supportive bond that has seen them through her recent cancer diagnosis. Slowly, however, Mina comes to realise how much her husband is moved by the presence of the young man.

Notes by David O’Mahony

Book Tickets

Thursday 11th

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