Mehdi M. Barsaoui’s “Aïcha” has been acquired by several distributors ahead of its world premiere in the Horizons section of the Venice Film Festival. The Party Film Sales is handling international sales. Variety debuts its trailer here.
Distributors attached include Cineart for Benelux, La Aventura Audiovisual for Spain, Discovery for former Yugoslavia, Jour2fête for France, I Wonder for Italy and Hakka Distribution for Tunisia. Cinewaves has taken theatrical rights for Middle East and North Africa, and Sunnyland Film, a member of A.R.T. Group, has taken digital sales rights for Middle East and North Africa.
The film follows Aya, who is in her late twenties. She feels trapped in her life with her parents in southern Tunisia, seeing no prospects for change. One day, the minivan she commutes in daily between her town and the hotel where she works crashes, leaving her as the sole survivor. Realizing this could be...
Distributors attached include Cineart for Benelux, La Aventura Audiovisual for Spain, Discovery for former Yugoslavia, Jour2fête for France, I Wonder for Italy and Hakka Distribution for Tunisia. Cinewaves has taken theatrical rights for Middle East and North Africa, and Sunnyland Film, a member of A.R.T. Group, has taken digital sales rights for Middle East and North Africa.
The film follows Aya, who is in her late twenties. She feels trapped in her life with her parents in southern Tunisia, seeing no prospects for change. One day, the minivan she commutes in daily between her town and the hotel where she works crashes, leaving her as the sole survivor. Realizing this could be...
- 8/27/2024
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
Through evocative imagery and simmering emotion, director Meryam Joobeur crafts a mesmerising story of fractured relationships and vengeful violence. Focusing on the repercussions of two sons abandoning their rural home to engage in war, her feature debut increasingly becomes more visceral. Starting as a refined drama about a broken Tunisian family, the narrative becomes a complex meditation on attachment and motherhood, all encompassed by a remarkable female lead.
The gruelling burden of a broken family is felt from the very first minutes we see Aïcha (Salha Nasraoui), who aches for the safe return of her sons. Telling close-ups of her dispirited expression mark a deep internal struggle, Joobeur focusing on a motherly love which brims on obsession and outweighs the worry of the other family members. Brahim (Mohamed Hassine Grayaa), burying his conflicting emotions in farm work, can't begin to fathom what will happen if his older sons return, especially after.
The gruelling burden of a broken family is felt from the very first minutes we see Aïcha (Salha Nasraoui), who aches for the safe return of her sons. Telling close-ups of her dispirited expression mark a deep internal struggle, Joobeur focusing on a motherly love which brims on obsession and outweighs the worry of the other family members. Brahim (Mohamed Hassine Grayaa), burying his conflicting emotions in farm work, can't begin to fathom what will happen if his older sons return, especially after.
- 2/23/2024
- by Sergiu Inizian
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Aïcha (Salha Nasraoui) and her husband Brahim (Mohamed Hassine Grayaa) live on a farm in northern Tunisia. It’s a modern rural environment of goats, trucks, home cooking and tight-knit families. In Meryam Joobeur’s feature-length debut “Who Do I Belong To,” an early sequence of Aïcha shaving Brahim’s face — an act of intimacy and trust — introduces a key part of the director’s aesthetic strategy: Dp Vincent Gonneville’s frequent use of extreme close-ups on the actors’ faces. At times, the camera hovers so close that they almost stop looking like faces at all; there’s a landscape quality to facial features observed from this kind of intense proximity. In the shaving scene, Grayaa’s cheeks, lathered with shaving foam, call to mind mountains buried under drifts of snow.
You might expect from this introduction that Brahim, this monumental patriarch, will play a bigger part in the subsequently unfolding events,...
You might expect from this introduction that Brahim, this monumental patriarch, will play a bigger part in the subsequently unfolding events,...
- 2/22/2024
- by Catherine Bray
- Variety Film + TV
The Middle East and North Africa region’s cinema star is rising across every aspect of the chain from production to exhibition to streaming.
Fresh energy has been injected into the sector by the arrival of Saudi Arabia on the scene following the lifting of its cinema ban in 2017 as part of its 2030 Vision diversifying the country’s economy away from oil.
Neighboring Qatar, one of the only stable major sources of funding for film in the region for more than a decade, also continues to play a vital role via the Doha Film Institute.
Its grants program, year-round training initiatives and springtime talent incubator Qumra have supported more than 750 short, features and series projects from 78 countries over the past decade.
The body was out in force at Cannes this year having supported films across Official Selection and the parallel sections, including Palme d’Or contenders About Dry Grasses, Club Zero...
Fresh energy has been injected into the sector by the arrival of Saudi Arabia on the scene following the lifting of its cinema ban in 2017 as part of its 2030 Vision diversifying the country’s economy away from oil.
Neighboring Qatar, one of the only stable major sources of funding for film in the region for more than a decade, also continues to play a vital role via the Doha Film Institute.
Its grants program, year-round training initiatives and springtime talent incubator Qumra have supported more than 750 short, features and series projects from 78 countries over the past decade.
The body was out in force at Cannes this year having supported films across Official Selection and the parallel sections, including Palme d’Or contenders About Dry Grasses, Club Zero...
- 5/31/2023
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
Karima Saïdi’s documentary movingly tries to shore up memories from her mother’s life, but the ethics of the process are uneasy
While caring for her mother Aïcha who has Alzheimer’s, film-maker Karima Saïdi often asks her the simple yet loaded question: “Where do you live?” At one point, her mother replies: “In a handkerchief”; a strangely poetic answer that encapsulates the mental haze of her condition. At other times she speaks of her childhood in Tangier, or the family home in Brussels where she saw her children grow up. As Aïcha’s mind wanders, Saïdi’s documentary transforms into a haven for her memories, which are fading fast.
This cinematic nest is built from old home videos and photographs, which tell of a turbulent immigrant life in Belgium. Saïdi’s older sister Amina was forced into marriage at the age of 15, and her brothers Jamal and Mohamed both died relatively young.
While caring for her mother Aïcha who has Alzheimer’s, film-maker Karima Saïdi often asks her the simple yet loaded question: “Where do you live?” At one point, her mother replies: “In a handkerchief”; a strangely poetic answer that encapsulates the mental haze of her condition. At other times she speaks of her childhood in Tangier, or the family home in Brussels where she saw her children grow up. As Aïcha’s mind wanders, Saïdi’s documentary transforms into a haven for her memories, which are fading fast.
This cinematic nest is built from old home videos and photographs, which tell of a turbulent immigrant life in Belgium. Saïdi’s older sister Amina was forced into marriage at the age of 15, and her brothers Jamal and Mohamed both died relatively young.
- 5/22/2023
- by Phuong Le
- The Guardian - Film News
Four projects are by Qatari and Qatar-based filmmakers.
The Doha Film Institute (Dfi) has revealed the 29 projects receiving grants through its 2023 spring funding round, with titles including Cannes Competition entry Banel & Adama.
Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s film, which debuts tomorrow (Saturday 20) in the Lumiere Theatre, is one of seven titles receiving a post-production grant.
Scroll down for the full list of Dfi spring 2023 grants
The France-Senegal-Mali-Qatar co-production is set in a northern Senegalese village, where a young married couple’s love challenges the customs of the local community.
The first-ever Congolese Dfi awardee is among the selection: Nelson Makengo’s feature documentary Rising Up At Night,...
The Doha Film Institute (Dfi) has revealed the 29 projects receiving grants through its 2023 spring funding round, with titles including Cannes Competition entry Banel & Adama.
Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s film, which debuts tomorrow (Saturday 20) in the Lumiere Theatre, is one of seven titles receiving a post-production grant.
Scroll down for the full list of Dfi spring 2023 grants
The France-Senegal-Mali-Qatar co-production is set in a northern Senegalese village, where a young married couple’s love challenges the customs of the local community.
The first-ever Congolese Dfi awardee is among the selection: Nelson Makengo’s feature documentary Rising Up At Night,...
- 5/19/2023
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
French Algerian documentary-maker Lina Soualem interviews her grandparents about their marriage and the 1950s immigrant experience in this touching film
A tender tribute to her Algerian grandparents, who emigrated to the French medieval town of Thiers in the 1950s, Lina Soualem’s touching documentary shows how the act of filming can awaken memories that have long laid dormant. Aïcha, the bubbly matriarch, looks youthful beyond her years, and can’t help but lapse into fits of shy giggles when prodded with questions about love and marriage. Husband Mabrouk is starkly withdrawn in contrast to her infectious warmth. As the couple decide to separate after 62 years of marriage, home videos of family celebrations become even more bittersweet in their fragile vibrancy.
A familiar face in French cinema, Soualem’s father, Zinedine Soualem, says with a matter-of-fact sadness that Mabrouk never complimented him on the success of his career. Consequently the documentary...
A tender tribute to her Algerian grandparents, who emigrated to the French medieval town of Thiers in the 1950s, Lina Soualem’s touching documentary shows how the act of filming can awaken memories that have long laid dormant. Aïcha, the bubbly matriarch, looks youthful beyond her years, and can’t help but lapse into fits of shy giggles when prodded with questions about love and marriage. Husband Mabrouk is starkly withdrawn in contrast to her infectious warmth. As the couple decide to separate after 62 years of marriage, home videos of family celebrations become even more bittersweet in their fragile vibrancy.
A familiar face in French cinema, Soualem’s father, Zinedine Soualem, says with a matter-of-fact sadness that Mabrouk never complimented him on the success of his career. Consequently the documentary...
- 3/13/2023
- by Phuong Le
- The Guardian - Film News
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