Maryam Touzani is being chosen to represent Morocco at the Academy Awards once again. Deadline reports that the country is submitting her second feature, Cannes Un Certain Regard title “The Blue Caftan,” as their pick in the 2023 International Feature Film Oscar race. Her feature debut, “Adam,” was selected as the Morocco’s entry for the 2020 ceremony.

Described as an “exploration of suppressed homosexuality,” “The Blue Caftan” follows a wife (Saleh Bakri) and husband (Lubna Azabal) who “run a handmade caftan shop in one of Morocco’s oldest medinas in the city of Salé. Their marriage hides a secret that neither wants to confront until a young male assistant (Ayoub Missioui) enters their lives.”

While making “Adam,” Touzani crossed paths with a man who led her to explore the subject matter she does in “The Blue Caftan.” She told Variety, “[He] reminded me of a lot of things I had heard in my childhood about men who were married and who were gay, and had to hide their homosexuality.” She observed, ” [There] was something I thought was very violent in the way that I imagined he had to live his life. To be someone that he wasn’t entirely, and be forced to maintain this façade in order to survive in this society.”

Morocco has never received a nomination in International Feature category yet. Films vying for nominations at the upcoming Oscars include Carla Simón’s “Alcarràs,” a drama about a family of peach farmers that’s representing Spain, and France’s pick, Alice Diop’s “Saint Omer,” the story of a novelist who attends the trial of a woman accused of infanticide.

Nominations for the Oscars will be announced January 24 and the ceremony will take place March 12.