This section, introduced in 2019, presents the national cinemas that have recently gained strong international festival recognition (Bulgaria, Israel, Mexico, Portugal, Brasil). Tunisia took the stage a few years ago mainly due to Mohamed Ben Attia and Kaouther Ben Hania, whose films will also appear in our selection. 

The Tunisian collection will be very diverse, but don’t expect any comedies or genre excesses. Instead, we will watch sophisticated and socially urgent dramas touching on the themes of inequity and injustice. Injustice is also a fundamental motif in all Kaouther Ben Hania’s films. Ben Hania (recently nominated for an Oscar for her documentary Four Daughters, that will also be screened at SFS) represents a strong voice among the contemporary Tunisian female directors. After all, half of the films selected for Terra Festivalis were directed by women.

The selected dramas with themes of injustice won’t be monotonous. Each film will reflect the current reality of the country which triggered the Arab Spring with a human torch in 2010, but still has to deal with the same issues as other states in the MENA region. The revolution spilled over to the neighbouring countries. Has anything changed at all? This question resonates across all of our films. Some are directly inspired by the events around the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi, which kicked off the Arab Spring (Lotfy Nathan’s Harka), others try to overcome regret over the missed opportunity (Youssef Chebbi’s crime noir Ashkal: The Tunisian Investigation). Motifs related to the position of women in contemporary Tunisia (Kaouther Ben Hania’s drama Beauty and the Dogs) resonate strongly, authentically and freely, while the Islamic State and the threat of militant recruitment across the Arab world(Mohamed Ben Attia’s Dear Son) can be identified as one of the key themes of the selection.

Contemporary Tunisian art house cinema is firmly established across all levels of festivals around the world, from the most prominent ones to minor local shows (Meryam Joobeur’s Who Do I Belong To appeared in the main competition at this year’s Berlinale). Most of the Tunisian art house films are made in co-production with France (all films screened at SFS were co-produced with France), and therefore, they have a strong organic connection to Europe and European art house film. Maybe that’s why Tunisian cinema sounds so urgent to us.