Four Daughters (Documentaries)
Director: Kaouther Ben Hania
Producer: Habib Attia, Martin Hampel, Nadim Cheikhrouha, Thanassis Karathanos
Screenwriter: Kaouther Ben Hania
Cinematographer: Farouk Laaridh
Composer: Amine Bouhafa
In this Cannes prize-winner, a mother and two of her daughters are joined by actors to work through their family history and understand the other two daughters’ heartbreaking choices.
Olfa Hamrouni has four children: Rahma, Ghofrane, Eya and Tayssir. In 2015, Rahma and Ghofrane left Tunisia, and their family, to join the Islamic State. In direct-to-camera interviews, all five women – with help from actors Nour Karoui and Ichraq Matar, standing in for the departed daughters – open up about their past and present, their traumas and tragedies, as a form of individual and group therapy by way of documentary.
Kaouther Ben Hania began her career as a documentarian before turning to fiction with Beauty and the Dogs (MIFF 2017) and the Oscar-nominated The Man Who Sold His Skin. Here, she returns to nonfiction without entirely leaving behind the conventions of drama – masterfully creating a hybrid docufiction inspired by Abbas Kiarostami’s Close-Up (MIFF 2003) and Lars von Trier’s Dogville. Celebrated Egyptian-Tunisian star Hend Sabri also joins the cast to play Olfa when things get too difficult, while Majd Mastoura rounds out the cast, playing all the male roles. Awarded the prestigious L’Œil d’Or at Cannes, Four Daughters is an extraordinary work of cinematic catharsis and truth-telling.
“An enthralling narrative about memory, motherhood and the inherited traumas of a patriarchal society … Radical in its honesty and courage.” – Hollywood Reporter