Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania films the damage caused by the enlistment of two young girls by Daesh, and the meeting of their mother with actresses to embody them in a fiction: unexpected and hard-hitting.
On screens Wednesday, July 5, Olfa’s Daughters, by director Kaouther Ben Hania, bears witness to the liveliness of Tunisian cinema which is celebrating its centenary this year. A fitting anniversary, while the film was in competition at Cannes, a first since 1970 for a Tunisian film. The filmmaker tackles the subject of the commitment of two young women within the Islamist group Daesh, which will upset a united single-parent family, within Tunisia post-Ben Ali.
Catharsis
Mother of four daughters in Tunisia, Olfa sees her two eldest disappear following their rallying to the Islamist group Daesh in Libya. The director Kaouther Ben Hania offers him to call on two actresses to talk about their story in a reconstruction alongside his two youngest daughters who have stayed at home. Then settles between the director, her actresses and the family, an extraordinary device, where the lack of the missing competes with rebellion and hope, while questioning a Tunisian society divided between Islam and secularism.
Olfa’s Daughters opens with the introduction of the two actresses to Olfa and her daughters. Recognition immediately dawns, both in the eyes of this upset mother and in those of her children who have remained with her. From the outset, a catharsis sets in, and the objective that director Kaouther Ben Hania has set for herself to make the filmic act a therapy, even a salvation, takes shape. In her sixth feature film, she also demonstrates an art of framing and colorful harmonies of remarkable elegance and visual beauty.
reactionary act
Olfa begins her story with that of her wedding night with a macho and violent man, whom she will quickly put in his place during a tasty episode. A strong, intelligent and rebellious woman, Olfa does not allow herself to be led by the nose, and will be able to impose herself with good sense and inflexible dexterity. But it will always remain within the framework of good morals and morals of Tunisian society which are close to its heart. She is supported by her four daughters who also denounce the criminal acts committed against them by all these men with whom Olfa tried to make a living. Until the Arab Spring of 2011, with its democratic breath, but which would turn against it with the emergence of extremist groups, such as Daesh, the Islamic State.
Kaouther Ben Hania captures the motivations of the two eldest who will rally Daesh, in their reactionary approach to the democratic and secular spirit of the spring that is taking hold. It is in their eyes an act of rebellion. It is done first by wearing the niqab (full veil) as a sign of indiscipline and a unifier for their cause. Then it is their disappearance forever from the family unit, publicized on Tunisian television, and the marriage to a fundamentalist imam, which will engrave in marble their rallying to Daesh, still painful today for Olfa and her younger daughters. Kaouther Ben Hania succeeds in a film that captures from start to finish both in its content and in its form.
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The sheet
Gender : Docu-fiction
Director: Kaouther Ben Hania
Actors: Hend Sabri, Olfa Hamrouni, Eya Chikahoui, Tayssir Chikhaoui, Nour Karoui, Ichraq Matar
Country : UNITED STATES
Duration : 1h50
Exit : July 5, 2023
Distributer : Play2Party