by Alex Billington
May 24, 2026
Source: YouTube
“Why all these years we were silent?” Film Movement has revealed an official trailer for an experimental documentary crossed with an animated film titled Bouchra, a meta creation featuring a “queer Moroccan jackal” as the main character. This first premiered at the 2025 Toronto & New York Film Festivals last fall, picking up some good reviews. The pitch: Moroccan filmmaker Bouchra is writing an autobiographical film that reflexively weaves together her own life in New York City with that of her fictional double. Bouchra happens also to be a coyote in a city of anthropomorphic creatures, rendered in nearly photorealistic and hyper-expressive animations. That sounds pretty cool so far. The festival adds: “With a lived-in granularity and unmistakable visual style, Bouchra, the feature debut from acclaimed visual artists Meriem Bennani & Orian Barki is a singular portrait effortlessly towing the line between documentary, visual art and resonant family drama. Deeply felt, surprisingly sexy and formally adventurous, Bennani & Barki’s distinctive debut forges new ground.” This looks like a very intriguing creation for die-hard cinephiles to dig into. A bit too experimental for my tastes, retelling her own story of how hard it is to create art while being an immigrant.
Here’s the official US trailer (+ poster) for Orian Barki & Meriem Bennani’s film Bouchra, from YouTube:
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 in the United States, the rift in her identity between her two homes and an array of friendships and romantic interests, Bouchra’s emotional reckoning with her mother and herself becomes her path to expression. Bouchra is co-directed and co-written by filmmakers Orian Barki & Meriem Bennani, both making their first feature film after working on short films and other projects. It’s produced by Filippo Fante and Fondazione Prada. This initially premiered at the 2025 Toronto Film Festival last year. Film Movement debuts Barki & Bennani’s Bouchra film in select US theaters starting June 26th, 2026 coming up this summer. For more details visit their official site. Look any good?
