Hello, and welcome to Queer's Fiction, where we discuss queer historical media. I'm Jasmine. I'm

Irene. I'm Alice. And today we're discussing Merriam Tuzani's 22 drama film, The Blue Caftham.

Before we get started, I'd like to acknowledge the Banawang Boon Wong people of the Kulin Nation

as the traditional owners of the land on which we record this podcast and pay respect to their elders past and present.

We recognize them as the custodians of an oral history tradition far older than this podcast.

We also have some content warnings for this episode.

This episode features mentions of terminal illness, homophobia, and sexual assault.

If any of that sounds like something you don't want to listen to, feel free to check out our other content.

This film, as I said in the intro, was directed by Merriam Tuzani, and written by her in collaboration

with her spouse, Nabil Ayush.

This is a reversal of her 2015 feature film screenwriting debut, much loved, where

they collaborated on the writing while Ayush directed. The film's origins actually begin

with Tuzani's previous film, Adam, which was inspired by an instance in her youth where her parents

sheltered a heavily pregnant woman in Tangier for several days during a time when being an unwed

pregnant woman was illegal in Morocco, which is where she's from and where the film is set. Was the film made in Morocco? Yes. Yeah. Both films, I think. Definitely this one. Tazani has a journalistic background, and that's highly apparent in the kinds of stories she chooses to tell in these films, which is to say that she likes to draw out the personal from the political. And I think as we get into the discussion of this film, I feel like that's very apparent in what she's doing. While filming Adam, she had a chance encounter that turned into several lengthy discussions with a man she met while location scouting in the Medina. She says of this, while I was scouting for that film, I met a man

who triggered a lot of emotions in me because I felt that there were a lot of things in his life

that he was keeping to himself. I think he reminded me of a lot of men I had heard about when I was

younger, couples that my parents knew where certain things weren't really said, obviously referring

to closeted gay people. Yeah.

Which is obviously a significant topic in this film, as we will get into, once we start discussing the actual plot. Yeah. You mentioned she met him in the Medina. I don't actually know. What is a Medina? The Medina is the old town equivalent, and kind of it refers to like a walled city portion within a city. I think in the film in particular, it's mostly referring to the marketplace, and I think that it's kind of it refers to like a walled city portion within a city. I think in the film in particular, it's mostly referring to the marketplace,

and I think that is kind of the way in which these areas often used, particularly in

modernity, and probably also historically as well.

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