Daoudia El Bidaouia

Wrestling with writer’s block for her first film, Bouchra, a queer Moroccan jackal living in NYC, starts having difficult yet overdue phone calls with her mother in Casablanca that begin influencing the project. Balancing the precarity of working as an artist, the rift in her cultural identity and an array of romantic interests, Bouchra’s emotional reckoning becomes her path to expression.

Touda is a Sheikha, a traditional Moroccan singer. Performing in the bars of her provincial town under the gaze of men, she plans to leave for the lights of Casablanca in search of recognition and to ensure a better future for her deaf-mute son.