After breaking ground with his 2021 movie “Casablanca Beats,” which marked the first Moroccan feature to vie for a Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, filmmaker Nabil Ayouch (“Much Loved”) is achieving a new milestone with his latest movie, “Everybody Loves Touda,” which premiered at Cannes Premiere and is now eligible in all categories at the Oscars. It’s the first Moroccan film to do so.

“Everybody Loves Touda,” penned by Ayouch and his wife, the actor-turned-filmmaker Maryam Touzani (“The Blue Caftan”), tells the story a young poetess and singer known as a Shaeirat (Nisrin Erradi), who raises her deaf-mute son in a small Moroccan village. Hoping to give her son a better future and more opportunities in life, she moves with him to Casablanca where she faces setbacks. Erradi, who previously starred in Touzani’s feature debut, “Adam,” prepared for the part in “Everybody Loves Touda” for a...