Cinema
Aziza
عزيزة
Abdellatif Ben Ammar · 1980
Synopsis
An orphan, Aziza lives with the elderly uncle who raised her and an ambitious cousin, with whom she moves into a new home in Tunis. At home, she cooks and cleans, while the men face the outside world and try to succeed in business. When the cousin's failed ventures have swallowed up the family's money, she leaves, shares a room with a outspoken actress neighbour and takes a job in a textile factory, where the work weighs on her less than the domestic chores; step by step, she gains her independence.
Context
A Tunisian-Algerian co-production, produced by Hassen Daldoul, the film was written by Ben Ammar with Taoufik Jebali, photographed by Youcef Sahraoui and edited by Moufida Tlatli; Ahmed Malek wrote the music. Yasmine Khlat plays the title role, alongside Raouf Ben Amor, Dalila Rames, Mohamed Zinet and Mouna Noureddine. It runs a hundred minutes according to the San Sebastián festival, which showed it again in 2003 and saw in it one of the strongest portraits of a woman in the new Arab cinema. MoMA had presented it in 1981 in its New Directors/New Films programme.
Who it is for
A social drama about the emancipation of a young woman, accessible without prior knowledge of Tunisia in the eighties.
Prizes and reception
Golden Tanit at the Carthage Film Days in 1980 according to L'Économiste maghrébin; selected the same year for the Directors' Fortnight.
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