Tunisian director Kawthar Ben Haniyeh described her film “Banat Intimacy”, which was shown in the official competition of the Cannes Film Festival, and deals with the story of a Tunisian woman facing the sliding of two of her daughters towards extremism and terrorism, that his filming was like a “therapeutic laboratory.”
Ben Haniyeh, who represents the first female director from Tunisia to compete for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Festival half a century ago, presented “Banat Intimacy” by Ben Haniyeh, last Friday at the French Film Festival, and aroused the interest of all those present.
“Banat Olfa”, which constitutes a hybrid mixture between the documentary and the novelist, immerses the viewer in the true story of Olfa Hamrouni, a Tunisian mother whose name became known all over the world in 2016 after she publicly raised the issue of the extremism of her two teenage daughters, Rahma and Forgiveness.
The two sisters left Tunisia to fight in the ranks of the terrorist organization ISIS in Libya, when they were arrested and imprisoned.
From the very first minutes of the film, the spectator realizes that he is watching a work in which the actress who plays her role is guided by the real intimacy. In some scenes, the director is shown taking questions from the actors.
“This work also represents a film about cinema, acting and memories of the past,” said Kawthar Ben Haniyeh, who gained international fame with her film “Ala Kaf Afrit”, which was screened outside the official competition of the Cannes Festival in 2017.
Since its inception, the director has relied on mixing reality and imagination.
Kawthar bin Haniyeh added to Agence France-Presse that she was interested in the story of intimacy in 2016 without realizing the exact details of the project she wanted to complete.
During the quarantine period associated with the “Covid-19” pandemic, the director realized how to implement her project. She explained, “What was missing for me to understand why the two girls went to Libya was the past, which I could only reconfigure with the help of actresses…and this is what I did.”
She indicated that filming the film was like a “therapeutic laboratory… as many feelings prevailed in the filming atmosphere… and several matters that were not addressed in the past were re-addressed.”
Kawthar Ben Haniyeh clearly shows terrorist practices in the film: “I wanted to explore the transmission of violence. This violence, which is transmitted from mother to daughter, is not limited to Tunisian society.
This transmission of violence is seen as a curse on the family. In the work, she shows how the patriarchal society that crushes women is often nurtured by mothers.
And after she was the first female director from Tunisia to represent this country at the Academy Awards in 2021 with her movie “On the Palm of a Goblin”, does she aspire next to win the Palme d’Or? “We will see,” she replies with a smile, adding, “We are already very happy to be in (Cannes).”
• From the first minutes of the film, the spectator realizes that he is watching a work in which the actress who plays her role is guided by the real intimacy.
