In the landscape of contemporary North African cinema, few filmmakers have addressed the complexities of desire, sexuality and artistic expression with the same unwavering commitment as Franco-Moroccan director Nabil Ayouch. Throughout his career spanning ten feature films, Ayouch has consistently challenged societal taboos while maintaining what he describes, somewhat paradoxically, as a fundamentally modest approach to filmmaking. This creative tension between boldness and restraint – between the desire to show and the art of suggestion – serves as a powerful lens for examining the broader conflict between individual freedom and social control in contemporary Morocco.
Everybody Loves Touda, 2024. Courtesy of Nabil Ayouch
The director, whose controversial film Much Loved (2015) faced severe censorship in Morocco despite international acclaim, has built his reputation on a rare balance between artistic freedom and deep respect for his performers. His latest feature, Everybody Loves Touda (2024), continues his exploration of female emancipation through the story of Touda, a sheika who embodies the subversive tradition of aïta singing – a cultural practice that has historically challenged Morocco’s patriarchal structures through expres-sions of love, desire and pleasure.
In this interview, we understand how Ayouch’s singular approach to filming sexuality rooted in both human modesty and political courage offers a vital counterpoint to the mechanisms of censorship that continue to shape our societies.
The constraint of desires – whether through formal or internalised censorship – emerges as a central preoccupation in Ayouch’s work and thought. As he reveals in our conversation, this compression creates a profound disconnect between private yearnings and public personas, generating what he points out as ‘an intense wound in our society.’ His films persistently probe this societal schism, examining how the inability to openly acknowledge and discuss desire leads to distorted expressions of sexuality and love. Through characters like Touda, who defiantly seeks both artistic recognition and sexual fulfilment, Ayouch illustrates how reclaiming one’s body and desires becomes a radical political act in a context of systematic repression.
This resistance to censorship manifests not only in his choice of subjects but also in his methodological approach to filmmaking itself. Working closely with both professional and non-professional actors, Ayouch has developed a cinema of radical empathy that prioritises listening and trust-building over conventional directorial authority. His work with the Ali Zaoua Foundation in Casablanca’s conservative suburbs, where dance becomes a tool for self-expression and emancipation, further demonstrates his commitment to creating spaces where repressed desires can find legitimate channels of expression.
Ayouch reflects on his artistic journey from theatre to cinema, his profound connection to his mother that shaped his sensitivity to women’s stories, and his ongoing commitment to representing sexuality with both courage and nuance. The conversation delves into the paradoxical nature of modesty in filmmaking, the political dimensions of bodily expression, and the complex evolution of sexual representation in Moroccan cinema. Through his responses, Ayouch reveals how his work navigates between artistic freedom and social consciousness in a society still grappling with questions of desire and emancipation.
What emerges is a portrait of a filmmaker who understands that the struggle against censorship is not merely about the right to depict sexuality on screen, but about fostering a broader social dialogue about love. As Morocco continues to negotiate between tradition and modernity, Ayouch’s cinema provides a vital space for confronting the consequences of repressed desires but also offers dazzling visions of joy and complicity embodied with strength and splendour by its actresses such as the riveting Nisrin Erradi in his latest feature.
Paola Raiman: The Japanese filmmaker Nagisa Oshima writes in his Diaries that modesty is ironically a male characteristic, and in this respect he also considers himself a modest filmmaker. Just like Oshima with The Realm of the Senses (1976), you made a film that faced severe censorship in your country. And what struck me indeed at the time of Much Loved was the notable modesty in your mise en scène when filming the sexuality of these women. Do you consider yourself a modest filmmaker?
Nabil Ayouch: Completely! For one simple reason – I started out in theatre before making films. I began as an actor in my youth in Paris, and what made me switch to the other side, or rather take refuge behind the eye of the camera to bare my soul, was precisely modesty. I couldn’t bare myself on stage. I just couldn’t.
…Prohibitions, and that’s what I’ve been fighting against for many years, which also implies the ability to overcome one’s own self-censorship…
Paola: Modesty but no taboos. You allow yourself to film nearly everything, but always with a profound respect for your characters and your actresses. Can you tell us more about working with these women, who are sometimes also non-professional actresses?
Nabil: You’re right to point out that modesty has nothing to do with taboos. And I’d like to stress that. Taboos are prohibitions, and that’s what I’ve been fighting against for many years, which also implies the ability to overcome one’s own self-censorship. And I believe that modesty is also a question of overcoming oneself. Sometimes you have to be able to overcome your own modesty, but that’s on another level.
My way of directing both actresses and actors has always been to listen to them first. I think that at a very young age I learned to listen better than to talk. Listening to a person is a great way of getting started, and then being able to take them by the hand and lead them somewhere new and personal. This creates a bond of trust, a genuine one. It’s never a strategy I decide to employ, it’s a very natural way for me to get to know the person better. My first and only passion is people. Diving into the depths of the human soul is very sweet, it’s very precious, and it’s also a way of starting this work of directing actors. From there, all fields of possibility are open.
Much Loved. Courtesy of Nabil Ayouch
Paola: Ever since your first films, I’ve been thinking about Ali Zaoua, prince de la rue (2000), for instance, you’ve been a companion to women and children, a little bit like Saïd’s character in Much Loved. Has your view of these characters evolved throughout your career? What links do you make between the characters of the children and the women?
Nabil: The only natural link I can see is that of my childhood and my relationship with my mother, who raised me on her own. She shaped my ideal of a strong, courageous woman. I had a very special relationship with my mother, who used to sing by the way.
This intimate bond was at the root of my desire to express these women’s characters in my films, and their connection with the character of the little boy I was and perhaps still am today.
Paola: Sensuality plays a paradoxical role in your work. It is both perceived as possible violence and rejected for that reason, and yet your characters aspire to a form of reconciliation with their own bodies. Would you say that you try to achieve this reconciliation for your female characters through your films?
Nabil: Sensuality is something that society has wanted to take from them, and has sometimes succeeded in doing so, for reasons of conservatism, religion, ideology or whatever. As something that should be hidden, because it represents something shameful. Because it should be confined to the private sphere. That’s where an implacable hypocritical machine comes into play. I didn’t want to leave my female characters to struggle alone in the face of this hypocrisy, I wanted to be there to bear witness. I wanted to bear witness to the fact that regaining possession of one’s body is a political act, an act of emancipation.
I set up the Ali Zaoua Foundation in the Casablanca suburbs in 2009, precisely where the terrorist who carried out the 16 August 2003 attacks originated, to give the children of this suburb a means of expression through dance. It’s a very conservative neighbourhood, and at the beginning only 10% of those coming to the foundation were girls, but in just two years we’ve achieved parity.
Paola: Your new film is inspired by a highly subversive figure in North Africa. Often controversial figures, sheikas were traditional female singers who blended music, storytelling and dance, and therefore defied societal norms. Can you tell us more about the sheikas and what this tradition means for you?
Nabil: The sheikas are heirs to a 19th century singing tradition called aïta, which literally means ‘the scream.’
At that time in Morocco, women were not allowed to sing publicly, and one of them, Kharboucha, dared to do so by opposing the local caïd. It didn’t end well for her, as the caïd fell in love with her but she refused him, and legend has it that he walled her up alive. The sheikas began to emerge from there and to carry all the political battles through their songs and, above all, to sing of love, desire, the body and pleasure, which were and still are very subversive things. They were the first to sing of this desire in the countryside, until the period of the great rural exodus, when they began to move to the cities. These women, once adored by the masses, lost their status when they began performing in cabarets and bars, becoming perceived as prostitutes by the patrons – to such an extent that the word ‘sheika’ almost became an insult. It was to restore their dignity that I wanted to make this film.
…I think her quest for sexual emancipation isn’t just about art. She’s also looking for real sexual pleasure…
Paola: In this regard, Nisrin Erradi’s performance in Everybody Loves Touda is impressive in its nuances of tenderness, pride and determination. Despite all the violence she endures, Touda is perhaps the character who most openly aspires to sexual liberation. Or at least a sexuality sublimated by the art of the aïta.
Nabil: I think her quest for sexual emancipation isn’t just about art. She’s also looking for real sexual pleasure, which she’ll seek with this married man who is also a cop; she decides to literally take her pleasure with whomever she pleases.
Paola: It also reminds me of the sex scene in Much Loved between Randa’s character and another woman. You clearly evoke lesbian love, but the sexual act itself is not included in the final montage.
Nabil: It was a very beautiful sequence, but unfortunately it didn’t fit into the overall architecture of the film. But it was by no means self-censorship, because I think it’s quite clear that Randa’s character loves women, even if the sex scene was ultimately cut in the editing.
Paola: It could just be a coincidence, but it is the second time that the word ‘love’ has appeared in the title of one of your films. What does this word mean to you and to your characters?
Nabil: A Moroccan sociologist, Fatima Mernissi (1940–2015), who was a good friend of mine, gave me a book about all the different ways of expressing love in Arabic. These are numerous, because Arabic is a very graphic language, and the boundary between love, sensuality and sex is quite narrow. And it’s quite paradoxical to see that in reality, as true love is very complicated to conquer in a society steeped in taboos. That’s what brings my heroines in Everybody Loves Touda and Much Loved together. They are loved but in a bad way. And they refuse this love. They refuse to be seen only as sexual objects. And in Everybody Loves Touda, Touda wants to be loved as an artist. I think that Morocco needs to reconcile itself with what true love is. To achieve this, we need to overcome a form of modesty – which we were talking about earlier – in the parent–child relationship. This is the key to the transmission of love. From there, we can make people accept that love does not obey the social norms that we would like to impose. It’s a battle that remains to be fought.
Paola: In a sequence from Comizi d’amore (1964), Pier Paolo Pasolini asks a young man working in a factory in Firenze about the place of sexuality in his life, and this man replies, ‘Important but sad.’ I have the feeling that this is an answer that several of your characters could give. But do you think this answer could also be suitable for the Moroccan people in general?
Nabil: Just like Pasolini, I too had a project to make a documentary on love in the Arab world, which unfortunately hasn’t come to fruition so far. I can feel and see the extent to which sexuality takes up space in conversations, dreams and fantasies, but I can also measure the extent to which it is prevented by norms and laws. The result is a thwarted and restricted sexuality, and above all a discrepancy between one’s deepest desires when falling asleep on one’s pillow at night and the image one is forced to portray in society. At the time of Much Loved, I wasn’t even aware of this discrepancy between who we really are and who we’d like to be, so I was genuinely surprised by the verbal violence and censorship Much Loved received. This is probably because sexuality was never a taboo subject where I grew up in Europe. We would talk about it with friends, at school and even at home. When I discovered the extent of the verbal and physical violence in Morocco against this film, I realised that it was a subject that had not been dealt with at all, and that it was, on the contrary, an intense wound in our society.
Paola: The moments of dance in your films are the most joyful, even more so than in sexuality, the real moment when women’s and men’s bodies exult.
Nabil: You’re totally right. It’s true that in societies where it’s difficult to express oneself skilfully with words, even though paradoxically it’s an oral society, there are other modes of expression that take over. I’ve witnessed scenes where men and women go into a trance when they hear sheikas sing, including conservative women who wear headscarves, and suddenly their bodies express themselves in front of men thanks to the liberating effect of dance. It’s very moving to watch, and I tell myself that if these people were able to express everything they have to say in words, they’d certainly feel better. And at the same time, it’s also beautiful to communicate only with gestures and movement.
Paola: What metaphor did you intend to convey when you chose to make the child character in Everybody Loves Touda a deaf-mute?
Nabil: It’s firstly an intimate metaphor that I won’t go into here as it’s linked to my personal experience with my mother. But there’s another metaphor too, which is Touda’s inability to make herself heard. She is surrounded by men who are not deaf but who are absolutely unable to hear her. The healing of this wound comes through the connection with her son, who represents the man of the future. And he, who is deaf, is the only one of these men to truly understand and listen to her. Because that comes through love.
Paola: What was the critical and public reception of Touda in Moroccan cinemas?
Nabil: The majority of Moroccan audiences have been won over by Touda, by her struggle and her path to emancipation. I have received many testimonials from women and men who have told me how important this film was to them in opening up their consciences. The critics were also generally full of praise, underlining all the work that had gone into the production. This was important to me because Morocco is the film’s natural home, even if Touda’s advocacy transcends time and geography. Then there are all those who don’t want to see or hear, and who reject this woman’s quest for freedom. These are the divisions we see in Moroccan society, where the dividing lines are fairly clear between the guardians of a form of conservatism who see the expression of a woman’s body and voice as an affront, and those who advocate a revolution in morals.
Paola: Do you feel that the representation of sexuality in Moroccan cinema has changed since you began your career?
Nabil: I’d like to say that the representation of sexuality in world cinema has evolved considerably. You only have to look at Italian cinema from the 1970s or American independent cinema. I think that sexuality is no longer a subject, socially I mean, as in many Western countries, while at the same time its artistic representation has been at the core of many questions for the last five or ten years. This may seem paradoxical, but not really when you think about it. A certain form of sexual liberation goes hand in hand with new forms of questioning about how it should be embodied. In Morocco, I’ve been able to observe the ground gained over twenty or thirty years, right up to the last few years, where I have the feeling of a return to a form of prudishness, even conservatism, in line with what can be observed in certain Western democracies.
Courtesy of Nabil Ayouch
Paola: To get back to the notion of modesty with which we began our interview, how do you consider the idea of male gaze on the bodies of the women you film?
Nabil: I don’t question the male gaze on the bodies of the women I film, just as I don’t think women directors should question the female gaze on the male bodies they film. I’ve always been very hermetic about the boundaries we draw between men and women in our creative approach to each other. I think that the greatest battles for emancipation, particularly on the issue of women’s rights, were won because we were with each other, socially and artistically. On the other hand, my natural modesty and the respect I have for my actors and actresses means that I always have to ask myself where my camera should be whenever I’m filming a scene in which the body expresses itself. I always try to go back to the reasons for writing the scene, to what I want to tell, and to be faithful to them. Sometimes that means going beyond some of my natural limits. Going back to the origins of a word, of a text, is for me essential in the approach to any creative work.