Bouchra made its world premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. The animated film follows the title character, Bouchra, a coyote, as she makes a documentary, while also including scenes from that documentary to show Bouchra’s complicated relationship with her mother.
Created by Orian Barki and Meriem Bennani, who also voiced Bouchra, the film exists in a world of anthropomorphic animals standing in for humans, where Bouchra navigates her love life in New York, and her quest for answers from her parents in Casablanca.
What is Bouchra about?
In Bouchra, the title character is in the midst of making a documentary about her life when she realizes a crucial element is missing—her mother’s perspective about a letter Bouchra sent her years ago. Blending scenes from the fictional documentary and the ‘real mother-daughter’ conversations, the audience sees the two sides of Bouchra and Aicha (Yto Barrada and Dounia Berrada).
In the ‘real world’ Bouchra and her mother appear to have a great relationship—they have an easy way of talking to each other and are able to tease each other without hurting any feelings. They even share the same deep fear of elevators. In Bouchra’s film, Aicha and Bouchra bond over their love of art.
But the one thing neither pair can seem to talk about is Bouchra’s sexuality. Bouchra is gay, though her mother won’t even acknowledge the word. Bouchra’s coming out didn’t go over well with her parents. There was some time following her coming out when they didn’t speak. And even when they reconnected, Bouchra wasn’t allowed to talk about her life. That’s really not the best way to be a family.
And Bouchra does appear to be living a double life. In New York, she lives in a tiny apartment, where she romances an ex who plans to offer her a job. In Casablanca, she’s the consummate daughter, entertaining friends and family.
What kind of film is Bouchra?
Though described as an animated film, Bouchra can best be described as a meta-documentary animation. There’s the documentary film within the film, which was shot with real people, especially Bennani’s mother and aunt. Bennani also co-wrote the film, which is how she managed to bring the additional layer of her relationship with her mother. During the Q&A following the film, Bennani spoke about how there was a missing element in the film—much like Bouchra finds while storyboarding her own documentary—that was only filled when Bennani started recording her actual conversations with her mother. Those conversations were then animated for the film.
That film within a film aspect didn’t come across to me, unfortunately. I might have to watch the film again because my seat in the front row made it impossible to decipher some of the finer details of the film. I assumed we were going back and forth in time, not that we were seeing Bouchra’s life inside and outside the documentary.
That is not a mark against the animation, which is out of this world. The last few years have challenged notions of what makes a great animated film. Every time I watch an animation, I’m stunned by the new techniques for creating these worlds and characters.
Bouchra’s 3D animation is completely different from the Pixar films people are used to. There’s an organic nature to the film, a realism that makes one forget that the film is animated at all. The way real backgrounds and 3D characters interact will make you believe this world is real. That this film was accomplished to such a high degree in just a year and a half speaks to the dedication and caliber of the animators. There’s nothing quite like this film out there.
And there’s a reason why Bouchra doesn’t look like other animated films. While there weren’t any specific films that inspired the look and feel of Bouchra, Bennani was quick to add that the film was inspired entirely by live-action films. I can definitely see that. The team mentioned Chungking Express, Pedro Almodovar’s films, and Mullholand Drive, and those influences come through beautifully. From the shadow work and nighttime settings of Chungking Express, to the surrealist narrative turns of Mulholland Drive, Bouchra pays subtle homages to its live-action influences, while inventing a narrative style that’s completely unique, and critical, for its story.
How was Bouchra made?
According to the animator Jason Coombs, and cinematographer John Michael Boling, Bouchra adopted every method possible to animate the characters. As mentioned, the deadline to make this film was a year and a half, which is a ludicrously short amount of time to create an animated feature—Boling came out of semi-retirement specifically to accomplish that feat.
Coombs explained that they used a combination of motion capture, live-action, and hand animation, and utilized video footage of Casablanca and New York’s exteriors with 3D recreations of interiors. The effect is a travel channel’s dream and a psychedelically immersive viewing experience. During the Q&A, Coombs and Bennani also shared that they sometimes donned the mo-cap suits to act out the characters, such was their involvement in the production.
Also during the Q&A, Barki was asked about choosing to make Bouchra a coyote. She said that the decision to choose the animal Bouchra would be was quite instantaneous; they had to reason it out for audiences later. Interestingly, the creative team had initially considered a North African wolf, because Bennani is from Morocco. However, once they chose to make Bouchra a coyote, that decision ended up impacting the personality of the character. As Barki said at TIFF, Bouchra is very “contained, well-behaved, she wants to fit into her worlds. But the coyote is a wild animal, with potential to get angry.” Barki wanted Bouchra’s presence to “hold that energy”.
The creators also spoke about the fashion in the film. While Bouchra was made in collaboration with Fondazione Prada, not all the character costumes were Prada. Bennani and Coombs said that the team was very intentional with the outfits; and while Prada did give them access to their catalogue, the creatives wanted to “recreate the worlds Bouchra inhabits”, and that meant basing some of the clothes on the people who actually appeared in the film.
Where can you see Bouchra?
The TIFF audience at the Bouchra screening I attended not only heartily applauded the film but enthusiastically congratulated the creators for their excellent work. But Bennani did share her hope for Bouchra to be “hacked and streamed” in her homeland of Morocco, because otherwise, people wouldn’t be able to see it.
I sincerely hope that Bouchra gets a wide release somehow. Not only is the film beautiful to look at, a feat of animation, and a triumph of complex storytelling, but it’s also a story of queer acceptance that is needed around the world today. What’s even more admirable is that the creative team behind this indie film used their platform at TIFF to call out the genocide of Palestinians—which shows how dedicated this team is to causes near and far from them. For the beauty of this film and the stance of the creators, if you get to see this film, go and see it, wherever you are.
Bouchra had its world premiere at TIFF 2025.
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