The Aswan International Women Film Festival has announced Tunisia as the guest of honour for its upcoming 2024 edition, commencing with the screening of the documentary-hybrid Four Daughters or Les Filles d’Olfa by Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania on April 20.
Four Daughters, an international collaboration involving Saudi Arabia, France, Tunisia, and Germany, emerges as a poignant drama narrating the tale of a Tunisian mother on a quest for answers after her two elder daughters are radicalised and disappear to join ISIS.
Ben Hania began crafting Four Daughters in 2016, inspired by a news story in Tunisia.
The film won the L’Oeil d’Or Award for Best Documentary at the Cannes Film Festival.
An ambitious exploration of rebellion, memory, and sisterhood, Four Daughters reconstructs the story of Tunisia’s Olfa Hamrouni and her daughters, unpacking a complex family history through intimate interviews and reenactments to examine how the two eldest were radicalised and disappeared. Casting professional actresses as missing eldest daughters Ghofrane and Rahma, along with Egyptian-Tunisian actress Hend Sabri as Olfa, director Kaouther Ben Hania re-stages pivotal moments in the family’s life as they tell their story, capturing moments of joy, loss, violence, and heartache. Interwoven with confessions and reflections from Olfa and younger daughters Eya and Tayssir, Four Daughters questions the nature of memory, the weight of inherited trauma, and the ties that bind mother and daughter.
Produced by Tanit Films in collaboration with Cinetelefilms and Twenty Twenty and co-produced with Red Sea Film Festival Foundation, ZDF/Arte, and Jour2Fête, Four Daughters is the result of Nadim Cheikhrouha’s creative vision in association with Habib Attia and Thanassis Karathanos.
