The film «Calle Málaga» by Maryam Touzani has clinched the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature at the 48th Denver Film Festival, held in Colorado, USA, from October 31 to November 9, 2025. The Moroccan director's latest creation was "selected from a demanding competition, featuring remarkable works presented at Cannes," according to the Moroccan Cinematographic Center, which lauded the "quality and international reach" of the national film industry. A Moroccan-European co-production, «Calle Málaga» is set to represent Morocco at the 2026 Oscars. In September, the film also captured the Audience Award in the Spotlight category during the official selection of the 82nd Venice Film Festival. Blending autofiction with reality and imagination, Maryam Touzani weaves the tale of Maria Angeles (Carmen Maura), a 79-year-old Spanish woman living alone in Tangier. Her tranquil life is disrupted when her daughter, Clara (Marta Etura), travels to Madrid to sell the apartment where she once resided. The mother embarks on a mission to keep her home and "retrieve the objects of a lifetime," a journey through which she rediscovers love and desire. The film explores themes of belonging to places as personal landmarks and "the right to love in old age." By transforming fragments of personal narrative and uniqueness into a global cinematic piece, Maryam Touzani chose to film in her native Tangier, where her Spanish maternal grandmother, who married a Moroccan, settled and spoke both Spanish and Arabic fluently. Previously, the feature film was showcased at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). In Morocco, it will be screened during the 22nd Marrakech International Film Festival (FIFM 2025).
