"The daughters of Olfa", Tunisian Kaouther Ben Hania raises the question of women

Being a mother, a wife, a jihadist, three feminine destinies after the revolution in Tunisia... In "Les filles d'Olfa", Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania explores, from the inside, how two of the four daughters of a Tunisian mother with no history were able to become jihadists and join Daesh in Libya after the Arab Spring of 2011.

"Les filles d'Olfa", by Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania. © Tanit Films

Text by: Siegfried Forster Follow

Advertising

Read more

It was one of two African films in the running for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania has since also received the Best International Film Award at the Munich Film Festival. On Wednesday, July 5, Les filles d'Olfa is released in theaters in France.

An artistic blur between reality and fiction

Formally, it was one of the most daring films of the Cannes Film Festival. Kaouther Ben Hania installs an artistic blur between reality and fiction, between real and fictional characters, to blur our bearings and especially our prejudices. Where are the boundaries between documentary and fiction? "I think there are no limits," says Kaouther Ben Hania. It is a fictitious border, made by institutions, by festivals. It's a cinema film. I call it more like a documentary, because it has a link with reality. There are real characters. And even the actresses in the film, they present themselves as actresses. It is also a documentary about their work as actors. We are more in something of the order of: there is no limit. Why set limits?

At the time, this tragic story of a mother and her four teenage daughters was widely publicized in Tunisia. To restore and understand a certain truth that has so far remained in the shadows, the director then stages reality in front of a unique setting and imagines the missing pieces of this vicious journey where two of the girls seek to "liberate" themselves by becoming jihadists. As the older sisters are now in prison, they are played by two actresses. At the same time, younger sisters play their own roles and sometimes act like actresses. No wonder they really enjoyed the screening of the film in Cannes: "The two little sisters were very happy," says Kaouther Ben Hania. They really liked the film. They said, "We're great in the movie. Thank you for giving us a voice.

"The daughters of Olfa", directed by Kaouther Ben Hania. © Cannes Film Festival 2023

Image and credibility

The change of attitude in front of a camera was also a big challenge when it came to filming Olfa, the mother. When the director began to follow her with the camera, in 2016, she often played a role, hid behind a public image. Hence the decision to also hire an actress to sometimes play Olfa. And since actress Hend Sabri is a star in Tunisia, Olfa was convinced that it would give her the credibility she needed to finally hear her truth.

A very complex truth, because the mother's relationship with her four daughters was often permeated with verbal and physical violence. Olfa truly oppressed her daughters, one of whom testifies in the film that for her older sister turned jihadist, jihadism was "the only space of freedom" she had. In other words, the film raises the question of women's responsibility in relation to violence and jihadism. "My film is a film about transmission," explains Kaouther Ben Hania. Transmissionfrom mother to daughter. Transmission of trauma. At the beginning of the film, we see that Olfa grew up in a family of women where she says: "I turned into a man, I did weight training, I cut my hair, to defend my mother and sisters". In this environment, the only way to defend oneself was to adopt the codes of patriarchy, to be inhabited inside by a toxic man. And that forms a person and a personality. She is both very maternal, but also very patriarchal. And this form of oppression, she exercised it on her daughters. She admits in the film: "I put my daughters through everything I went through when I was their age. " It is a form of curse. »

Curse and dark women

The Tunisian director transforms this curse into a very deep portrait of Olfa. It shows a woman from and living in a very patriarchal environment. On the other hand, it was she who beat and humiliated her husband rather than the other way around. And it is she who bears part of the responsibility for the tragic journey of her two jihadist daughters. Despite this, Olfa was able to recognize herself in the film, says Kaouther Ben Hania: "When I decided to show them the film, Olfa was very afraid. She told me, "I'm going to be horrible. I know. People will hate me, but anyway, I'm horrible."But when she watched the film with her two daughters, she was relieved. I did a bit of the specter of the character. He's a multidimensional character.

Surprisingly, at the Cannes Film Festival, the Tunisian director was far from alone in detecting women's violence. For the first time, a significant number of films had staged destructive, violent, cynical, inhuman, ruthless, selfish, even macho women... dark sides hitherto often reserved for men.

► Read also: Cannes 2023: the revelation of dark, dangerous and violent women

► Read also: Kaouther Ben Hania on his film "Beauty and the Pack": "Fight or go crazy"

► Read also: Kaouther Ben Hania on his film "The man who sold his skin"

NewsletterReceive all the international news directly in your mailbox

I subscribe

Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application

Share:

Read on on the same topics:

• Cinema
• Tunisia
• Culture Africa
• Our selection
• Culture