At this year's Berlin Film Festival, Tunisian drama Hedi won both the best first feature-film award, for director Mohamed Ben Attia, and best actor, for its star Majd Mastoura.
The film is an ambitious character study that tries to make sense of the so-called Jasmine Revolution of 2011 by telling the story of a man, Hedi, who is having serious doubts about getting married, with just a week to go before the ceremony.
As with all the best films featuring stories that work as metaphors, audience enjoyment does not rely on a deep understanding of the underlying subtext. It also helps that two of the best exponents of this school of filmmaking, double Cannes Palme d’Or-winners Jean and Luc Dardenne, are co-producers – and Ben Attia seems to be an exemplary pupil.
“The first reading of the film, for those who do not know the history of Tunisia, is that this is the story of someone who is going through a depression and is confronted by the expectations of his family,” says Ben Attia. “He wants to be emancipated from the social code that his family imposes.”
Hedi, a car salesman, and not a very good one, is waiting for his impending wedding to Khedija (Omnia Ben Ghali). The event has been organised by his controlling mother, Baya (Sabah Bouzouita), a widow who expects them all to live under her roof. Hedi seems resigned to living under her dictat, until a work trip takes him to the coastal city of Mahdia, where he meets Rim (Rym Ben Messaoud), a free-spirited, slightly older and more wanderlust-driven woman.
Their developing friendship poses questions for the usually passive Hedi, who is forced to make a decision for what seems like the first time in his life. In this way, his story embodies a wider story about Tunisia.
“I like stories that are simple, but that behind them, they are more complicated,” says Ben Attia. “After the revolution, we had won a big moment of expression, but we had lost love, unfortunately. There is still violence.
“So I wanted to tell this story, not to shock, but to give this sensibility and to recall this lack of love.”
Hedi screens at Vox Mall of the Emirates on Monday, December 12 at 6.45pm and Tuesday, December 13 at 10pm. Tickets cost Dh35
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