Filmoption is very happy to unveil the trailer for the feature film Heir of Secrets. Let’s remember. The film, a free adaptation of the Arabic-language novel Désir emancipé by author Fatiha Morchid, stars Younes Bouab who has just won the prize for best male performer at the Khourigba African Cinema Festival in addition to the critics’ prize awarded to the film, alongside him we find Nadia Kounda, Mounia Zahzam, Nisrin Erradi and El Mehdi in the lead roles. Furthermore, the 26th Arab Film Festival in Rotterdam presented the feature film on June 11 in the presence of the director.
Farid is four years old when his beloved father disappears. He fled Morocco for another woman, the adults whisper. To never return. Farid grows up in this repressed absence, marries the beautiful Sofia and begins a promising career. It was then that a letter arrived from Montreal. And the cruel truth emerges after decades of lies: it was at the request of Farid’s mother that his father left them, and it was not for another woman, but because he himself aspired to be one. So Farid sets out to go back in time and meet the man he hoped for, but who is no longer one.
Mohamed Nadif, a graduate of the Higher Institute of Dramatic Art and Cultural Animation – ISADAC (Morocco) and the University of Paris-X Nanterre, began his career in the theater as an actor and director before moving to cinema. He appeared in numerous films, then founded Awman Productions and directed the short films The Young Woman and the Elevator (2005), The Young Woman and the Teacher (2007) as well as The Young Woman and the School (2009). In 2011, he produced and directed the feature film Andalusia, mon amour! and, in 2019, Les femmes du Pavillon J. As a producer or executive producer, mainly in France, he supported first and second feature films including Margelle and Un été à Boujaad by Omar Moudouira, Entre deux eaux by Patrice Cordonnier, Tazzeka by Jean-Philippe Gaud and Nomades (Naima et ses fils) by Olivier Coussemacq.
The Heir of Secrets, an official Moroccan (Mohamed Nadif and Rachida Saadi for Awman Productions) and Canadian (Bahija Essoussi and Samuel Yoshimura-Gagnon for Objectif 9) co-production with Pascale Drevillon as content consultant. The organizations Helem Montréal, À pieds leva as well as Fierté Montréal contributed to this project. The Heir of Secrets is distributed in Canada by Filmoption. The release date is set for August 7, 2026.