It’s official: the Arab World is home to another Cesar laureate as on Feb. 23, Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania became one of the latest Arab recipients of the French equivalent of an Oscar. Etching her name alongside some of the most respected figures in the silver screen industry, the North African director is one of the very few from our region to scoop up the coveted prize for her film Four Daughters.
The feature won in the “Best Documentary” category, beating out Atlantic Bar by Fanny Molins, Mona Achache’s Little Girl Blue, the Claire Simon-directed Our Body, and Nicolas Philibert’s On the Adamant.
Co-produced between France, Tunisia, Germany, and Saudi Arabia, the film tells the story of Olfa Hamrouni (portrayed by Hend Sabri), a working-class single mother whose two eldest daughters left to join the ranks of internationally recognized terrorist group ISIS. Touching on religious extremism in a post-Arab Spring context, the fictionalized true story sheds light on several broader societal issues Tunisia had, and still has, to come to terms with.
Stemming from a nationwide scandal in 2016, Hamrouni’s struggle initially made headlines after she publicly criticized her government’s inaction towards preventing radicalization and addressing its root causes. Back then, her two daughters, Rahma and Ghofrane Chikhaoui fled their native homeland to fight alongside the Islamic State in Libya before being arrested and jailed.
Stepping onto L’Olympia’s stage to accept her much-deserved award, Ben Hania quickly turned the attention towards raising awareness on the relentless carpet-bombing of Palestinians, urging the audience to use their respective platforms and voices to call for an immediate ceasefire and put an end to the ongoing humanitarian crisis plaguing Gaza and the rest of the embattled parcel of land.
“Today, saying ‘Stop killing children’ is becoming a radical demand,” the 46-year-old said. “It’s completely mind-blowing. We are not going to be silent; we are not going to be intimidated. The massacre must stop. We have to use our authority because what’s happening there is so horrible, horrible. No one can say, ‘I didn’t know.’ This is the first massacre on live stream, live on our telephones. We know it. And it has to stop,” she continued.
What’s more, the 49th edition of the Cesar Awards proved that good things indeed come in pairs as Ben Hania wasn’t the only Tunisian that took home an award. Canadian-Tunisian filmmaker Monia Chokri also received accolades for Simple Comme Sylvian, which was honored in the “Best Foreign Film” category. Far less political than her counterpart’s winning entry, Chokri’s full-length feature follows the quite uneventful life of a Quebecois couple until they cross paths with Sylvain, a maintenance worker who came to restore their secondary residence.
