Ten projects have been selected for the second edition of Seriesmakers, Series Mania’s development lab for feature film directors sidestepping into series production.
The lab is run in collaboration with Beta, and this year features projects helmed by directors including Kaouther Ben Hania, who directed the Oscar-nominated doc Four Daughters, and Kevin Macdonald, best known for The Mauritanian.
Ben Hania’s project is titled Freedom Academy and is produced by Nadim Cheikhrouha. The synopsis reads: In the competitive world of television, a cunning producer and his optimistic wife battle for control of a daring reality TV show set in a high-security prison, hoping to capture the intense competition among incarcerated radicals all while the jury grapples with their divergent opinions on prisoners’ rehabilitation.
Macdonald’s series is titled George Blake and is produced by Femke Wolting. Synopsis reads: What makes a person turn against everything they ever stood for?...
The lab is run in collaboration with Beta, and this year features projects helmed by directors including Kaouther Ben Hania, who directed the Oscar-nominated doc Four Daughters, and Kevin Macdonald, best known for The Mauritanian.
Ben Hania’s project is titled Freedom Academy and is produced by Nadim Cheikhrouha. The synopsis reads: In the competitive world of television, a cunning producer and his optimistic wife battle for control of a daring reality TV show set in a high-security prison, hoping to capture the intense competition among incarcerated radicals all while the jury grapples with their divergent opinions on prisoners’ rehabilitation.
Macdonald’s series is titled George Blake and is produced by Femke Wolting. Synopsis reads: What makes a person turn against everything they ever stood for?...
- 3/4/2024
- by Zac Ntim
- Deadline Film + TV
Seriesmakers, a joint initiative of Series Mania, Europe’s biggest TV festival, and European film-tv powerhouse Beta Group, has revealed the 10 top-notch project lineup of the second edition of its novel and high-powered mentoring program for filmmakers making their TV creator debut.
This year’s Seriesmakers features in development drama series from Oscar winner Kevin Macdonald (“George Blake”), behind “The Last King Of Scotland,” and from Finnish director Mikko Myllylahti, who burst onto the scene co-writing with Juho Kuosmanen the latter’s “The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Makki,” a 2016 Cannes Un Certain Regard winner.
Also in the mix is the highly courted Kaouther Ben Hania, a double Oscar nominee for the “compelling, ambitious hybrid” “Four Daughters,” said Variety, in the doc category and the “The Man Who Sold His Skin” (2020), Tunisia’s entry in international feature.
In all, however, nine of the ten directors winning berths this...
This year’s Seriesmakers features in development drama series from Oscar winner Kevin Macdonald (“George Blake”), behind “The Last King Of Scotland,” and from Finnish director Mikko Myllylahti, who burst onto the scene co-writing with Juho Kuosmanen the latter’s “The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Makki,” a 2016 Cannes Un Certain Regard winner.
Also in the mix is the highly courted Kaouther Ben Hania, a double Oscar nominee for the “compelling, ambitious hybrid” “Four Daughters,” said Variety, in the doc category and the “The Man Who Sold His Skin” (2020), Tunisia’s entry in international feature.
In all, however, nine of the ten directors winning berths this...
- 3/4/2024
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Sci-fi blockbuster Dune: Part Two opens in 721 venues this weekend, carrying the hopes of many UK-Ireland cinemas after a slow start to 2024.
Denis Villeneuve’s sequel is Warner Bros’ fourth-widest opening of all time in the territory, after last year’s Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom (749) and Barbie (724), and 2022’s Elvis (746).
It is opening on 62 sites more than Dune, which started in 659 venues in October 2021. That film began with a £4.8m weekend at a £7,210 average, dethroning James Bond title No Time To Die. It went on to a £22.1m total – a decent result in a market still feeling the effects of the pandemic.
Denis Villeneuve’s sequel is Warner Bros’ fourth-widest opening of all time in the territory, after last year’s Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom (749) and Barbie (724), and 2022’s Elvis (746).
It is opening on 62 sites more than Dune, which started in 659 venues in October 2021. That film began with a £4.8m weekend at a £7,210 average, dethroning James Bond title No Time To Die. It went on to a £22.1m total – a decent result in a market still feeling the effects of the pandemic.
- 3/1/2024
- ScreenDaily
At first, Kaouther Ben Hania couldn’t figure out what Four Daughters should entail. She’d started working on the film in 2016 after seeing news reports about Olfa Hamrouni, a mother in the director’s native Tunisia whose two teenage daughters ran away from home and joined Isis in a stunning act of radicalization. Ben Hania thought she’d make a conventional documentary, but after spending time with Hamrouni, she realized the story was too complex for that. So she pressed pause, made the 2020 drama The Man Who Sold His Skin (which earned an Oscar nom for international feature) and came back with a new idea: She would hire actors to portray the family, including Hamrouni’s missing children. Throughout the shoot, they restaged memories and discussed the family’s history alongside Hamrouni and her two younger daughters.
What results is a profound meditation that blurs genre lines. Four Daughters...
What results is a profound meditation that blurs genre lines. Four Daughters...
- 2/20/2024
- by Matthew Jacobs
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
It’s been a busy week for Oscar-nominated documentary filmmakers Maite Alberdi and Kaouther Ben Hania. On Monday, Alberdi, director of The Eternal Memory, and Ben Hania, director of Four Daughters, joined fellow nominees at the glittering Oscar Nominees Luncheon at the Beverly Hilton. Today, they sit down with Deadline for the latest edition of our Doc Talk podcast.
In her film, Alberdi documents the relationship between two of Chile’s most prominent figures in the arts and journalism – Paulina Urrutia and Augusto Góngora – a love story that endured even as Augusto coped with advancing Alzheimer’s disease. The director explains why she sees The Eternal Memory as “an answer” to her previous film The Mole Agent, which earned Alberdi the first Oscar nomination of her career..
In Four Daughters, Ben Hania explores a story from her native Tunisia — the case of a woman named Olfa who raised four girls, only to see the two eldest fall under the sway of radical Islamist ideology and join Isis. The director tells us why she made the decision to incorporate actors into her film to play Olfa and her two oldest daughters in re-creations. She also talks about why Hind Sabri, a star of Arab cinema who took on the role of Olfa, felt afraid of the woman she was portraying. And Ben Hania explains why a male actor she hired walked off the set during one particularly intense scene.
This marks a return trip to the Academy Awards for Ben Hania as well as Alberdi. They were both nominated in 2021 – Alberdi for Documentary Feature and Ben Hania in International Feature for her narrative feature The Man Who Sold His Skin.
In the new episode of Doc Talk, we also revisit our interview from last fall with Moses Bwayo and Christopher Sharp, directors of the Oscar-nominated documentary Bobi Wine: The People’s President. And the titular Bobi Wine – the Ugandan pop star turned politician — joins us too – explaining what he wishes the filmmakers had left out of the documentary.
That’s on Doc Talk, the podcast co-hosted by Oscar winner John Ridley (12 Years a Slave) and Matt Carey, Deadline’s documentary editor. Doc Talk is a production of Deadline and Ridley’s Nō Studios, presented with support from National Geographic Documentary Films.
In her film, Alberdi documents the relationship between two of Chile’s most prominent figures in the arts and journalism – Paulina Urrutia and Augusto Góngora – a love story that endured even as Augusto coped with advancing Alzheimer’s disease. The director explains why she sees The Eternal Memory as “an answer” to her previous film The Mole Agent, which earned Alberdi the first Oscar nomination of her career..
In Four Daughters, Ben Hania explores a story from her native Tunisia — the case of a woman named Olfa who raised four girls, only to see the two eldest fall under the sway of radical Islamist ideology and join Isis. The director tells us why she made the decision to incorporate actors into her film to play Olfa and her two oldest daughters in re-creations. She also talks about why Hind Sabri, a star of Arab cinema who took on the role of Olfa, felt afraid of the woman she was portraying. And Ben Hania explains why a male actor she hired walked off the set during one particularly intense scene.
This marks a return trip to the Academy Awards for Ben Hania as well as Alberdi. They were both nominated in 2021 – Alberdi for Documentary Feature and Ben Hania in International Feature for her narrative feature The Man Who Sold His Skin.
In the new episode of Doc Talk, we also revisit our interview from last fall with Moses Bwayo and Christopher Sharp, directors of the Oscar-nominated documentary Bobi Wine: The People’s President. And the titular Bobi Wine – the Ugandan pop star turned politician — joins us too – explaining what he wishes the filmmakers had left out of the documentary.
That’s on Doc Talk, the podcast co-hosted by Oscar winner John Ridley (12 Years a Slave) and Matt Carey, Deadline’s documentary editor. Doc Talk is a production of Deadline and Ridley’s Nō Studios, presented with support from National Geographic Documentary Films.
- 2/13/2024
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
Updated with reaction from documentary nominees. In an Oscar stunner, two films considered a lock for nominations failed to be recognized Tuesday morning in the Best Documentary Feature category: American Symphony and Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie.
Instead, a group of five internationally focused documentaries earned nominations: National Geographic’s Bobi Wine: The People’s President, The Eternal Memory, Four Daughters, To Kill a Tiger, and 20 Days in Mariupol.
Kaouther Ben Hania, the Tunisian director of Four Daughters told Deadline this morning, “We live in a world where everything is linked so people are interested what happened in Tunisia and Uganda [where Bobi Wine takes place]. It’s just amazing. It proves that we live in a world where people are more curious, more international, more open.”
Related: Cillian Murphy On Best Actor ‘Oppenheimer’ Oscar Nomination: “I Feel Really Privileged And Lucky To Be In A Film That’s Connected With People”
Documentary branch voters,...
Instead, a group of five internationally focused documentaries earned nominations: National Geographic’s Bobi Wine: The People’s President, The Eternal Memory, Four Daughters, To Kill a Tiger, and 20 Days in Mariupol.
Kaouther Ben Hania, the Tunisian director of Four Daughters told Deadline this morning, “We live in a world where everything is linked so people are interested what happened in Tunisia and Uganda [where Bobi Wine takes place]. It’s just amazing. It proves that we live in a world where people are more curious, more international, more open.”
Related: Cillian Murphy On Best Actor ‘Oppenheimer’ Oscar Nomination: “I Feel Really Privileged And Lucky To Be In A Film That’s Connected With People”
Documentary branch voters,...
- 1/23/2024
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
It’s been an eventful 2023 for international TV and film. As the strikes shut down Hollywood and streamers retrenched from the mega-spends of the Covid era, shows and movies from far and wide remained in demand like never before, as viewers continued to look to new countries for inspiration. Call it the Squid Game effect, or whatever you want, but neither subtitles nor geographical boundaries are an impediment to content getting seen any more. Here, we run down each Deadline International journalist’s top pick from the year, for the most part avoiding spoilers. You’ll find big-ticket U.S. fare, Japanese anime, restaurant TV dramas and Australian newsroom stories among our eclectic selections.
And for more on the top new non-u.S. titles for the year, be sure to check out our fortnightly Global Breakouts strand, featuring shows from Turkey,...
And for more on the top new non-u.S. titles for the year, be sure to check out our fortnightly Global Breakouts strand, featuring shows from Turkey,...
- 12/23/2023
- by Jesse Whittock, Melanie Goodfellow, Andreas Wiseman, Baz Bamigboye, Max Goldbart, Liz Shackleton, Stewart Clarke, Nancy Tartaglione, Diana Lodderhose, Jake Kanter and Caroline Frost
- Deadline Film + TV
Four Daughters (Les Filles d'Olfa) director Kaouther Ben Hania on Olfa Hamrouni, Eya Chikhaoui, Tayssir Chikhaoui, Ichrak Matar, Nour Karoui, and Hind Sabri: “I already have a rich gallery of female characters. So to simplify and have the focus on the female characters, I thought that the men can be played by one actor (Majd Mastoura) and I wanted to experiment with this idea.”
In the second instalment with Kaouther Ben Hania on Tunisia’s now Best International Feature Film and Documentary Oscar shortlisted Four Daughters (Les Filles d'Olfa) we discussed her three natural-born storytellers (Olfa Hamrouni and her daughters Eya Chikhaoui and Tayssir Chikhaoui), experimenting with one actor (Majd Mastoura) portraying multiple male characters, loving clichés, and colours. Ben Hania’s The Man Who Sold His Skin had received a Best International Film Oscar nomination in 2021 and her intense and unwavering Beauty And The Dogs (Aala Kaf Ifrit...
In the second instalment with Kaouther Ben Hania on Tunisia’s now Best International Feature Film and Documentary Oscar shortlisted Four Daughters (Les Filles d'Olfa) we discussed her three natural-born storytellers (Olfa Hamrouni and her daughters Eya Chikhaoui and Tayssir Chikhaoui), experimenting with one actor (Majd Mastoura) portraying multiple male characters, loving clichés, and colours. Ben Hania’s The Man Who Sold His Skin had received a Best International Film Oscar nomination in 2021 and her intense and unwavering Beauty And The Dogs (Aala Kaf Ifrit...
- 12/22/2023
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
The third Red Sea International Film Festival in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia put a spotlight on movies from the Middle East and North Africa region.
It also presented an opportunity to bring together six filmmakers with strong cinematic voices for the first-ever Hollywood Reporter roundtable at the fest, in partnership with Neom.
Among those participating in the roundtable were two past Oscar nominees and four hopefuls for the 2024 best international feature Oscar.
Representing Saudi Arabia was Ali Alkalthami, whose Mandoob, a satirical drama exploring the class divide, screened in the Red Sea festival’s competition. Tunisia’s Kaouther Ben Hania, an Oscar nominee in 2021 for The Man Who Sold His Skin, brought Four Daughters, an experimental documentary-drama hybrid in which professional actors re-enact a family’s devastating experience of loss and that won the doc award in Cannes, to the fest’s Arab Spectacular lineup. It is also Tunisia’s submission...
It also presented an opportunity to bring together six filmmakers with strong cinematic voices for the first-ever Hollywood Reporter roundtable at the fest, in partnership with Neom.
Among those participating in the roundtable were two past Oscar nominees and four hopefuls for the 2024 best international feature Oscar.
Representing Saudi Arabia was Ali Alkalthami, whose Mandoob, a satirical drama exploring the class divide, screened in the Red Sea festival’s competition. Tunisia’s Kaouther Ben Hania, an Oscar nominee in 2021 for The Man Who Sold His Skin, brought Four Daughters, an experimental documentary-drama hybrid in which professional actors re-enact a family’s devastating experience of loss and that won the doc award in Cannes, to the fest’s Arab Spectacular lineup. It is also Tunisia’s submission...
- 12/11/2023
- by Georg Szalai
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Deadline’s Contenders Film: International award-season event launches Saturday beginning at 9 a.m. Pt, the latest in our series of showcases that this time turns the focus toward global cinema via discussions with the casts and creatives of 12 movies submitted by their countries for the 2024 Academy Awards’ International Feature race.
Click to sign up for and watch today’s livestream.
The 2023 Oscar ceremony was a triumph for international film. Going into the ceremony, Edward Berger’s All Quiet on the Western Front was a winner already, having earned a spectacular seven nominations. If that wasn’t enough, it came away with four statuettes: one for International Feature, and three for Cinematography, Music and Production Design. Clearly this can’t happen every year, but, like Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite before it, Berger’s World War I epic proved that boundaries are being broken down, and international film, once synonymous with arthouse,...
Click to sign up for and watch today’s livestream.
The 2023 Oscar ceremony was a triumph for international film. Going into the ceremony, Edward Berger’s All Quiet on the Western Front was a winner already, having earned a spectacular seven nominations. If that wasn’t enough, it came away with four statuettes: one for International Feature, and three for Cinematography, Music and Production Design. Clearly this can’t happen every year, but, like Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite before it, Berger’s World War I epic proved that boundaries are being broken down, and international film, once synonymous with arthouse,...
- 12/9/2023
- by Damon Wise
- Deadline Film + TV
The third edition of the Red Sea Souk, the market arm of the Red Sea Film Festival, awarded its top prize of $100,000 to “The Return of the Prodigal Son” by Rani Massalha. Another eight feature projects and two TV series were awarded cash and in-kind prizes as part of the Red Souk Awards.
Massalha’s film, a co-production between Egypt, Tunisia and France, tells the story of Salem, a pig farmer in Egypt who is a Copt — a native Christian community in the country, often persecuted — amidst a breakout of the swine flu in 2009 that sends Egypt into a spiral of psychosis, leading the Mubarak government to pass a law to slaughter all the pigs.
In a statement, the writer-director said: “The pigs of Egypt were ‘sacrificed’ under political pressure and hysterical media coverage organized by the Muslim Brotherhood, crystalizing the structural violence of Egyptian social relations between communities.”
“Isn...
Massalha’s film, a co-production between Egypt, Tunisia and France, tells the story of Salem, a pig farmer in Egypt who is a Copt — a native Christian community in the country, often persecuted — amidst a breakout of the swine flu in 2009 that sends Egypt into a spiral of psychosis, leading the Mubarak government to pass a law to slaughter all the pigs.
In a statement, the writer-director said: “The pigs of Egypt were ‘sacrificed’ under political pressure and hysterical media coverage organized by the Muslim Brotherhood, crystalizing the structural violence of Egyptian social relations between communities.”
“Isn...
- 12/5/2023
- by Rafa Sales Ross
- Variety Film + TV
The Gotham Awards brought the usual array of surprises this year, and it wasn’t only about who walked away with the trophies.
Aside from the uproar over Robert De Niro’s speech (which is unlikely to have much bearing on the awards campaign for “Killers of the Flower Moon”), some of the other top contenders gained significant traction leading up to a crucial week ahead. New York Film Critics Circle’s announcement of the year’s best films and performances unfurls Thursday, while Golden Globes voting in the film categories started Tuesday.
At the forefront of Gothams buzz-boosters is breakout sensation Charles Melton, earning the best supporting performance award for his role in Netflix’s “May December.” In Todd Haynes’ black comedy, Melton portrays Joe Yoo, a young man navigating his marriage to an older woman, a role that stands out alongside Oscar winners Natalie Portman (“Black Swan”) and...
Aside from the uproar over Robert De Niro’s speech (which is unlikely to have much bearing on the awards campaign for “Killers of the Flower Moon”), some of the other top contenders gained significant traction leading up to a crucial week ahead. New York Film Critics Circle’s announcement of the year’s best films and performances unfurls Thursday, while Golden Globes voting in the film categories started Tuesday.
At the forefront of Gothams buzz-boosters is breakout sensation Charles Melton, earning the best supporting performance award for his role in Netflix’s “May December.” In Todd Haynes’ black comedy, Melton portrays Joe Yoo, a young man navigating his marriage to an older woman, a role that stands out alongside Oscar winners Natalie Portman (“Black Swan”) and...
- 11/29/2023
- by Clayton Davis
- Variety Film + TV
As the voting window for the Oscar shortlists approaches, Academy members are considering Kaouther Ben Hania’s film Four Daughters in not one, but two categories: Best Documentary Film and Best International Feature.
In August, Tunisia selected Ben Hania’s documentary as its official entry for International Film, the third time the director has been chosen for that honor, following 2017’s Beauty and the Dogs and 2020’s The Man Who Sold His Skin, which went on to earn an Oscar nomination. Both of those earlier films were narrative dramas, and there are dramatic elements in Four Daughters: Ben Hania enlisted three actresses to participate in her documentary.
Olfa Hamrouni, protagonist of ‘Four Daughters,’ at the Cannes Film Festival.
Four Daughters tells the story of Olfa, a working-class Tunisian woman who raised four girls: Ghofrane, Rahma, Eya, and Tayssir. After the Arab Spring led to the ouster of Tunisia’s...
In August, Tunisia selected Ben Hania’s documentary as its official entry for International Film, the third time the director has been chosen for that honor, following 2017’s Beauty and the Dogs and 2020’s The Man Who Sold His Skin, which went on to earn an Oscar nomination. Both of those earlier films were narrative dramas, and there are dramatic elements in Four Daughters: Ben Hania enlisted three actresses to participate in her documentary.
Olfa Hamrouni, protagonist of ‘Four Daughters,’ at the Cannes Film Festival.
Four Daughters tells the story of Olfa, a working-class Tunisian woman who raised four girls: Ghofrane, Rahma, Eya, and Tayssir. After the Arab Spring led to the ouster of Tunisia’s...
- 11/27/2023
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
Every year the race for the Oscar for best documentary feature gets more expensive and less inclusive.
The challenging doc marketplace favors a handful of big-name filmmakers commissioned to make one-off films or docuseries. During the last two years, directors of independently made docs, especially those tackling hard-hitting social issues, have been facing an uphill battle to secure distribution.
The major streaming services, who just a few years ago were spending millions to acquire indie fare, seem to no longer be interested in garnering titles out of festivals.
There have, of course, been exceptions. Matthew Heineman’s “American Symphony” sold to Netflix immediately after the film’s Telluride premiere in September, and HBO Documentary Films/Max picked up Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson’s Sundance Grand Jury Prize U.S. Documentary winner “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project” eight months after it debuted in Park City. Netflix acquired Laura McGann...
The challenging doc marketplace favors a handful of big-name filmmakers commissioned to make one-off films or docuseries. During the last two years, directors of independently made docs, especially those tackling hard-hitting social issues, have been facing an uphill battle to secure distribution.
The major streaming services, who just a few years ago were spending millions to acquire indie fare, seem to no longer be interested in garnering titles out of festivals.
There have, of course, been exceptions. Matthew Heineman’s “American Symphony” sold to Netflix immediately after the film’s Telluride premiere in September, and HBO Documentary Films/Max picked up Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson’s Sundance Grand Jury Prize U.S. Documentary winner “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project” eight months after it debuted in Park City. Netflix acquired Laura McGann...
- 11/3/2023
- by Addie Morfoot
- Variety Film + TV
by Chris James
The rest of the AFI Film Festival had plenty more highs and lows in store. Movies from many different countries and genres were well represented in the remainder of the slate. Of the potential Oscar contenders, I was able to catch Tunisia’s Oscar submission this year - Four Daughters. The documentary film is helmed by Kaouther Ben Hania, who previously earned an Oscar nomination in 2020 for The Man Who Sold His Skin. The other jaunt abroad I took could not have been more different. The queer Greek comedy The Summer With Carmen served a fun comedy set in large part on a nude beach. This provoked a good bit of emotional whiplash as I saw it right after the climate change disaster drama, The End We Start From.
What did we think of this trio of films? Find out after the jump.
The rest of the AFI Film Festival had plenty more highs and lows in store. Movies from many different countries and genres were well represented in the remainder of the slate. Of the potential Oscar contenders, I was able to catch Tunisia’s Oscar submission this year - Four Daughters. The documentary film is helmed by Kaouther Ben Hania, who previously earned an Oscar nomination in 2020 for The Man Who Sold His Skin. The other jaunt abroad I took could not have been more different. The queer Greek comedy The Summer With Carmen served a fun comedy set in large part on a nude beach. This provoked a good bit of emotional whiplash as I saw it right after the climate change disaster drama, The End We Start From.
What did we think of this trio of films? Find out after the jump.
- 10/31/2023
- by Christopher James
- FilmExperience
Kaouther Ben Hania on Tunisia’s Oscar submission Four Daughters (Les Filles d'Olfa): “It’s a movie about real people but it’s also a reality that doesn’t exist outside this movie.”
Kaouther Ben Hania in Four Daughters tells the story of Olfa Hamrouni and her four daughters. Eya Chikhaoui and Tayssir Chikhaoui, the two youngest, are with their mother, while the two oldest Ghofrane Chikaoui and Rahma Chikhaoui are imprisoned in Libya for terrorism charges. In the film they are portrayed by actors Ichrak Matar and Nour Karoui respectively, and the mother finds herself doubled as well, by actress Hind Sabri, for scenes that, as the director explains in the hybrid documentary, might be too upsetting for Olfa to relive. Ben Hania’s The Man Who Sold His Skin had received a Best International Film Oscar nomination in 2021 and her intense and unwavering Beauty And The Dogs.
Kaouther Ben Hania in Four Daughters tells the story of Olfa Hamrouni and her four daughters. Eya Chikhaoui and Tayssir Chikhaoui, the two youngest, are with their mother, while the two oldest Ghofrane Chikaoui and Rahma Chikhaoui are imprisoned in Libya for terrorism charges. In the film they are portrayed by actors Ichrak Matar and Nour Karoui respectively, and the mother finds herself doubled as well, by actress Hind Sabri, for scenes that, as the director explains in the hybrid documentary, might be too upsetting for Olfa to relive. Ben Hania’s The Man Who Sold His Skin had received a Best International Film Oscar nomination in 2021 and her intense and unwavering Beauty And The Dogs.
- 10/22/2023
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Academy Award-nominee Kaouther Ben Hania’s Cannes prize-winning documentary “Four Daughters” won the Golden Eye for Best Documentary at the Cannes Film Festival. Now, Kino Lorber is releasing it this fall in limited release.
“Four Daughters” made its World Premiere as the sole Arab film in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival and its North American premiere in the Special Presentations section at the Toronto International Film Festival, and has been submitted as the official Tunisian entry for Best International Feature at the 96th Academy Awards.
Read More: ‘Four Daughters’ Cannes Review: A Tunisian Mother Loses Her Daughters To Wolves
The follow-up to Ben Hania’s Oscar-nominated 2020 narrative film, “The Man Who Sold His Skin,” for all accounts, the engaging docu-drama— about a Tunisian mother who has to reckon with the disappearance of two of her daughters to radicalization with two actors used to stage them for dramatic purposes—is an engaging winner.
“Four Daughters” made its World Premiere as the sole Arab film in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival and its North American premiere in the Special Presentations section at the Toronto International Film Festival, and has been submitted as the official Tunisian entry for Best International Feature at the 96th Academy Awards.
Read More: ‘Four Daughters’ Cannes Review: A Tunisian Mother Loses Her Daughters To Wolves
The follow-up to Ben Hania’s Oscar-nominated 2020 narrative film, “The Man Who Sold His Skin,” for all accounts, the engaging docu-drama— about a Tunisian mother who has to reckon with the disappearance of two of her daughters to radicalization with two actors used to stage them for dramatic purposes—is an engaging winner.
- 10/4/2023
- by Edward Davis
- The Playlist
Screen is profiling every submission for best international feature at the 96th Academy Awards.
Entries for the 2024 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.
The 96th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 10, 2024 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.
An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.
Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between December 1, 2022, and October 31, 2023. The deadline...
Entries for the 2024 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.
The 96th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 10, 2024 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.
An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.
Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between December 1, 2022, and October 31, 2023. The deadline...
- 9/8/2023
- by Screen staff
- ScreenDaily
Screen is profiling every submission for best international feature at the 96th Academy Awards.
Entries for the 2024 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.
The 96th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 10, 2024 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.
An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.
Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between December 1, 2022, and October 31, 2023. The deadline...
Entries for the 2024 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.
The 96th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 10, 2024 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.
An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.
Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between December 1, 2022, and October 31, 2023. The deadline...
- 9/8/2023
- by Screen staff
- ScreenDaily
Screen is profiling every submission for best international feature at the 96th Academy Awards.
Entries for the 2024 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.
The 96th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 10, 2024 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.
An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.
Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between December 1, 2022, and October 31, 2023. The deadline...
Entries for the 2024 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.
The 96th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 10, 2024 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.
An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.
Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between December 1, 2022, and October 31, 2023. The deadline...
- 9/6/2023
- by Screen staff
- ScreenDaily
Tunisia has picked Kaouther Ben Hania’s documentary Four Daughters, which debuted in competition in Cannes this year, as its entry for the 2024 Oscars in the best international feature category.
The film focuses on a mother, Olfa Hamrouni and her four daughters, two of which disappeared as teenagers, with evidence suggesting they had left to join Islamic State in Libya. Ben Hania hired professional actresses to play the two missing daughters, who interact with the rest of the family, creating a docu-fiction hybrid, as a way of exploring the family’s trauma. Four Daughters won the Golden Eye prize for the best documentary in Cannes, sharing it with Asmae El Moudir’s film The Mother of All Lies. Four Daughters will also be submitted to the Oscars in the best documentary category.
Ben Hania’s last film, the drama The Man Who Sold His Skin, which premiered in Venice in...
The film focuses on a mother, Olfa Hamrouni and her four daughters, two of which disappeared as teenagers, with evidence suggesting they had left to join Islamic State in Libya. Ben Hania hired professional actresses to play the two missing daughters, who interact with the rest of the family, creating a docu-fiction hybrid, as a way of exploring the family’s trauma. Four Daughters won the Golden Eye prize for the best documentary in Cannes, sharing it with Asmae El Moudir’s film The Mother of All Lies. Four Daughters will also be submitted to the Oscars in the best documentary category.
Ben Hania’s last film, the drama The Man Who Sold His Skin, which premiered in Venice in...
- 9/1/2023
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Tunisia has picked Kaouther Ben Hania’s Four Daughters, which debuted in competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, as its entry for the Best International Feature Film category at the 2024 Oscars.
Four Daughters was one of two documentaries this year to earn a coveted spot in the main competition at Cannes. The film centers on Olfa Hamrouni and her children – the titular four daughters. The eldest two disappeared from Tunisia as teenagers, with evidence pointing to them being swept up into Isis. To fill in their absence, Ben Hania hired professional actresses to play the missing daughters, creating a unique hybrid of fiction and documentary to explore the family’s lasting trauma.
The Party Film Sales is handling distribution efforts on the pic, which shared the L’Oeil d’or (Golden Eye) prize for the best documentary in Cannes with The Mother of All Lies (La Mère de...
Four Daughters was one of two documentaries this year to earn a coveted spot in the main competition at Cannes. The film centers on Olfa Hamrouni and her children – the titular four daughters. The eldest two disappeared from Tunisia as teenagers, with evidence pointing to them being swept up into Isis. To fill in their absence, Ben Hania hired professional actresses to play the missing daughters, creating a unique hybrid of fiction and documentary to explore the family’s lasting trauma.
The Party Film Sales is handling distribution efforts on the pic, which shared the L’Oeil d’or (Golden Eye) prize for the best documentary in Cannes with The Mother of All Lies (La Mère de...
- 9/1/2023
- by Zac Ntim and Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
Screen is profiling every submission for best international feature at the 96th Academy Awards.
Entries for the 2024 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.
The 96th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 10, 2024 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.
An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.
Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between December 1, 2022, and October 31, 2023. The deadline...
Entries for the 2024 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.
The 96th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 10, 2024 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.
An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.
Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between December 1, 2022, and October 31, 2023. The deadline...
- 9/1/2023
- by Screen staff
- ScreenDaily
Locarno — Brazil’s Pandora Filmes, one of the country’s premier independent distributors, has secured Brazilian distribution rights to “Tomorrow’s Rain”(“Amanhã Já Não Chove”), a Portuguese portrait of bourgeois malaise which was brought onto the market last weekend at the Locarno Festival’s Match Me!
Pandora Filmes’ distribution slate takes in “Parasite,” “The Man Who Sold His Skin,” and “R.M.N.”
Set up at Lisbon’s Omaja and Brazil’s Capuri, which cut the deal with Pandora, “Tomorrow Rain” marks the fiction feature debut of Portuguese director-producer Bernardo Lopes at Omaja, a 2021 Portuguese Film Academy Sophia Award winner for his short “Moço.”
Produced by Lopes and Eduardo Rezende, “Tomorrow’s Rain”will star José Pimentão, who played Ramiro in Netflix’s “1899,” and João Nunes Monteiro, a Portuguese Film Academy Sophia Award winner best actor award winner for “Mosquito” in 2021 and best supporting actor winner last year for “The Tsugua Diaries.
Pandora Filmes’ distribution slate takes in “Parasite,” “The Man Who Sold His Skin,” and “R.M.N.”
Set up at Lisbon’s Omaja and Brazil’s Capuri, which cut the deal with Pandora, “Tomorrow Rain” marks the fiction feature debut of Portuguese director-producer Bernardo Lopes at Omaja, a 2021 Portuguese Film Academy Sophia Award winner for his short “Moço.”
Produced by Lopes and Eduardo Rezende, “Tomorrow’s Rain”will star José Pimentão, who played Ramiro in Netflix’s “1899,” and João Nunes Monteiro, a Portuguese Film Academy Sophia Award winner best actor award winner for “Mosquito” in 2021 and best supporting actor winner last year for “The Tsugua Diaries.
- 8/9/2023
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Among those selected, Laura Poitras won the Golden Lion at the festival last year.
Jane Campion, Mia Hansen-Løve, Laura Poitras and Martin McDonagh have joined the main Competition jury of the 80th Venice Film Festival (August 30-September 9).
The filmmakers will be joined by Palestinian actor Saleh Bakri (Wajib); Italian director Gabriele Mainetti, who was in Competition at the festival in 2021 with Freaks Out; Argentinian writer/director Santiago Mitre, whose Argentina, 1985 premiered in Competition at Venice last year; and Chinese actress Shu Qi, known for her performances in Hou Hsiao-Hsien films Millennium Mambo, Three Times and The Assassin.
US director Poitras...
Jane Campion, Mia Hansen-Løve, Laura Poitras and Martin McDonagh have joined the main Competition jury of the 80th Venice Film Festival (August 30-September 9).
The filmmakers will be joined by Palestinian actor Saleh Bakri (Wajib); Italian director Gabriele Mainetti, who was in Competition at the festival in 2021 with Freaks Out; Argentinian writer/director Santiago Mitre, whose Argentina, 1985 premiered in Competition at Venice last year; and Chinese actress Shu Qi, known for her performances in Hou Hsiao-Hsien films Millennium Mambo, Three Times and The Assassin.
US director Poitras...
- 7/13/2023
- by Michael Rosser
- ScreenDaily
Jane Campion, Laura Poitras, Martin McDonagh and Mia Hansen-Løve have joined the main jury of the upcoming Venice Film Festival.
The prominent directors, most of whom are Venice regulars – Poitras last year scored the Golden Lion with documentary “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” – will be joined by fellow jury members including Palestinian actor Saleh Bakri (“Wajib”); Chinese star Shu Qi (“The Assassin”); Italian director Gabriele Mainetti, who was at Venice last year with “Freaks Out”; and Argentinian auteur Santiago Mitre, whose “Argentina, 1985” also launched from the Lido last year.
They will join Damien Chazelle who, as previously announced, will serve as president of the Venice competition jury.
Venice revealed its jury just hours after talks broke down without a deal between actors union SAG-AFTRA and the Alliance for Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). A strike is expected to be called on Thursday morning, Pacific time, which could have...
The prominent directors, most of whom are Venice regulars – Poitras last year scored the Golden Lion with documentary “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” – will be joined by fellow jury members including Palestinian actor Saleh Bakri (“Wajib”); Chinese star Shu Qi (“The Assassin”); Italian director Gabriele Mainetti, who was at Venice last year with “Freaks Out”; and Argentinian auteur Santiago Mitre, whose “Argentina, 1985” also launched from the Lido last year.
They will join Damien Chazelle who, as previously announced, will serve as president of the Venice competition jury.
Venice revealed its jury just hours after talks broke down without a deal between actors union SAG-AFTRA and the Alliance for Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). A strike is expected to be called on Thursday morning, Pacific time, which could have...
- 7/13/2023
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
The festival closed on July 1.
Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania’s experimental mix of documentary and fiction Four Daughters won the main €50,000 Arri award for best international film in the CineMasters competition at Filmfest München on July 1.
The film’s German co-producer Thanassis Karathanos of Berlin-based Twenty Twenty Vision Filmproduktion quipped he had written so many cheques to Arri in the past and it was nice to be having one now coming in the other direction, when accepting the award at the festival’s closing ceremony,
Four Daughters is the second collaboration between Karathanos and Martin Hampel’s Twenty Twenty...
Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania’s experimental mix of documentary and fiction Four Daughters won the main €50,000 Arri award for best international film in the CineMasters competition at Filmfest München on July 1.
The film’s German co-producer Thanassis Karathanos of Berlin-based Twenty Twenty Vision Filmproduktion quipped he had written so many cheques to Arri in the past and it was nice to be having one now coming in the other direction, when accepting the award at the festival’s closing ceremony,
Four Daughters is the second collaboration between Karathanos and Martin Hampel’s Twenty Twenty...
- 7/3/2023
- by Martin Blaney
- ScreenDaily
Kaouther Ben Hania’s “Four Daughters,” winner of the L’Oeil d’Or Award for best documentary at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, has been acquired for U.S. distribution. Kino Lorber will open the film theatrically this Fall, following stops on the international festival circuit, and followed by a digital and home video release on all major platforms.
“Four Daughters” was the sole Arab film in Main Competition at Cannes this year, and Sharon Waxman of TheWrap wrote that it “takes us into the intimate, inner circle of family ties to tell a larger story of our time.” The picture concerns the story of Tunisia’s Olfa Hamrouni and her daughters, detailing a family history through interviews and reenactments to deconstruct how the two eldest kids were radicalized to the point of joining Isis.
“We were immediately captivated by Kaouther Ben Hania’s powerful documentary Four Daughters, a...
“Four Daughters” was the sole Arab film in Main Competition at Cannes this year, and Sharon Waxman of TheWrap wrote that it “takes us into the intimate, inner circle of family ties to tell a larger story of our time.” The picture concerns the story of Tunisia’s Olfa Hamrouni and her daughters, detailing a family history through interviews and reenactments to deconstruct how the two eldest kids were radicalized to the point of joining Isis.
“We were immediately captivated by Kaouther Ben Hania’s powerful documentary Four Daughters, a...
- 6/22/2023
- by Scott Mendelson
- The Wrap
Kino Lorber has acquired the U.S. rights to Tunisian director and Oscar nominee Kaouther Ben Hania’s Four Daughters, which shared the L’Oeil d’Or Award for best documentary at the Cannes Film Festival.
The Cannes competition entry, which uses professional actors to help re-enact one family’s devastating experience of loss, will open theatrically this fall, followed by a digital and home video release on major platforms.
“Ben Hania casts accomplished actors to perform alongside her real-life documentary subjects, adding a layer of complexity that gives agency to her collaborators and mines truth from the space it occupies between fact and memory. We couldn’t be more thrilled to bring this groundbreaking documentary to U.S. audiences this fall,” Wendy Lidell, senior vp theatrical distribution and acquisitions at Kino Lorber, said Thursday in a statement.
Four Daughters is written and directed by Ben Hania, whose 2020 film The Man Who Sold His Skin...
The Cannes competition entry, which uses professional actors to help re-enact one family’s devastating experience of loss, will open theatrically this fall, followed by a digital and home video release on major platforms.
“Ben Hania casts accomplished actors to perform alongside her real-life documentary subjects, adding a layer of complexity that gives agency to her collaborators and mines truth from the space it occupies between fact and memory. We couldn’t be more thrilled to bring this groundbreaking documentary to U.S. audiences this fall,” Wendy Lidell, senior vp theatrical distribution and acquisitions at Kino Lorber, said Thursday in a statement.
Four Daughters is written and directed by Ben Hania, whose 2020 film The Man Who Sold His Skin...
- 6/22/2023
- by Etan Vlessing
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Kino Lorber has acquired U.S. rights to “Four Daughters,” Kaouther Ben Hania’s film which competed at the Cannes Film Festival.
The competition’s sole Arab film, “Four Daughters” mixes documentary and fiction to tell the story of a Tunisian mother whose two elder daughters joined Isis. It won L’Oeil d’or or “Golden Eye” Award at Cannes for best documentary and is now set to roll off into the international festival circuit. Kino Lorber plans to release it theatrically this fall, followed by a digital and home video release on all major platforms.
The New York-based distribution company has high hopes for “Four Daughters” during the next awards season. Last year’s L’Oeil d’Or winner, “All That Breathes,” went on to earn an Oscar nomination for best documentary. Ben Hania previously earned an Oscar nomination with her 2020 film “The Man Who Sold His Skin” in the international feature film category.
The competition’s sole Arab film, “Four Daughters” mixes documentary and fiction to tell the story of a Tunisian mother whose two elder daughters joined Isis. It won L’Oeil d’or or “Golden Eye” Award at Cannes for best documentary and is now set to roll off into the international festival circuit. Kino Lorber plans to release it theatrically this fall, followed by a digital and home video release on all major platforms.
The New York-based distribution company has high hopes for “Four Daughters” during the next awards season. Last year’s L’Oeil d’Or winner, “All That Breathes,” went on to earn an Oscar nomination for best documentary. Ben Hania previously earned an Oscar nomination with her 2020 film “The Man Who Sold His Skin” in the international feature film category.
- 6/22/2023
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
The 2023 Cannes Film Festival’s documentary slate featured probes into human rights abuses and profiles of unsung visionaries. At least one movie falls into both categories. This year marks the second time that the L’Œil d’or, first presented in 2015, has gone to two films. It’s also the first time in 19 years that nonfiction has competed for the Palme d’Or. Do you think any of the following titles 10 should be on our radar come Oscar season?
See Cannes 2023 round-up: Top 25 movies to emerge from this year’s festival [Photos]
“Anita”
Anita Pallenberg is known by a small group, and still only as a muse rather than an actress, fashion icon and writer. Laird Borrelli-Persson (Vogue) describes her as a “troubled woman who has come close to being mythologized out of existence and sidelined by the juggernaut that is The Rolling Stones.” Alexis Bloom and Svetlana Zill made “Anita...
See Cannes 2023 round-up: Top 25 movies to emerge from this year’s festival [Photos]
“Anita”
Anita Pallenberg is known by a small group, and still only as a muse rather than an actress, fashion icon and writer. Laird Borrelli-Persson (Vogue) describes her as a “troubled woman who has come close to being mythologized out of existence and sidelined by the juggernaut that is The Rolling Stones.” Alexis Bloom and Svetlana Zill made “Anita...
- 6/2/2023
- by Ronald Meyer
- Gold Derby
Two documentaries by Arab women directors have jointly won this year’s L’Oeil d’or (Golden Eye) award for best documentary at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.
Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania’s Four Daughters and The Mother of All Lies from first-time Moroccan filmmaker Asmae El Moudir were announced as this year’s best documentary winners at a ceremony in Cannes on Saturday.
Both films use experimental cinematic techniques to explore stories of trauma from their home countries. In The Mother of All Lies, El Moudir explores her family’s history and the stories and lies told surrounding the upheaval and violence of the 1981 Bread Riots in Casablanca. With no archive footage or even photographs, to draw on, she painstakingly recreates, from memory, her family’s old apartment and the old Casablanca neighborhood in the form of a miniature set on a soundstage, with figurines to represent her family members.
Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania’s Four Daughters and The Mother of All Lies from first-time Moroccan filmmaker Asmae El Moudir were announced as this year’s best documentary winners at a ceremony in Cannes on Saturday.
Both films use experimental cinematic techniques to explore stories of trauma from their home countries. In The Mother of All Lies, El Moudir explores her family’s history and the stories and lies told surrounding the upheaval and violence of the 1981 Bread Riots in Casablanca. With no archive footage or even photographs, to draw on, she painstakingly recreates, from memory, her family’s old apartment and the old Casablanca neighborhood in the form of a miniature set on a soundstage, with figurines to represent her family members.
- 5/27/2023
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Cannes: Docudramas are inherently difficult to master. You’re attempting to meld real-life footage or people with actors and, often, fictionalized accounts that may substantially differ from the truth. In the case of “Four Daughters,” director and screenwriter Kaouther Ben Hania has succeeded in mastering the genre but, notably, by the slimmest of margins. It helps that her subject and source material are compelling enough to overcome the movie’s flaws.
Read More: “The Zone of Interest” Review: Jonathan Glazer’s often brilliant examination of human complicity [Cannes]
The follow-up to Ben Hania’s Oscar-nominated 2020 narrative film, “The Man Who Sold His Skin,” her latest endeavor begins with Olfa Hamrouni and her two twentysomething daughters, Eya Chikahoui and Tayssir Chikhaoui, waiting in a production office or maybe a makeup studio or, possibly, just a room (it’s never really clarified) somewhere in Tunis, Tunisia.
Continue reading ‘Four Daughters’ Cannes Review: A...
Read More: “The Zone of Interest” Review: Jonathan Glazer’s often brilliant examination of human complicity [Cannes]
The follow-up to Ben Hania’s Oscar-nominated 2020 narrative film, “The Man Who Sold His Skin,” her latest endeavor begins with Olfa Hamrouni and her two twentysomething daughters, Eya Chikahoui and Tayssir Chikhaoui, waiting in a production office or maybe a makeup studio or, possibly, just a room (it’s never really clarified) somewhere in Tunis, Tunisia.
Continue reading ‘Four Daughters’ Cannes Review: A...
- 5/25/2023
- by Gregory Ellwood
- The Playlist
Oscar-nominated Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania’s powerful drama “Four Daughters” which mixes documentary and fiction to tell the story of a Tunisian mother whose two elder daughters joined Isis is scoring a slew of sales following its well-received Cannes competition premiere.
French company The Party Films Sales has sealed deals on “Four Daughters” for: Benelux (Cineart); Spain (Caramel Films); Italy (I Wonder); Switzerland (Trigon); Sweden (Triart); Denmark (Camera Film); Norway (Arthaus); Finland (Cinemanse); Poland (New Horizons); Greece (Ama Films); former Yougoslavia (Discovery) and Turkey (Bir Film).
Rights to the film for multiple other territories are under negotiations, the company said.
Ben Hania – whose previous works comprise “Beauty and the Dogs” and “The Man Who Sold His Skin” – in “Four Daughters” delves into the story of Tunisia’s Olfa Hamrouni who rose to international prominence in April 2016 when she publicized the radicalization of her two teenage daughters who had left Tunisia to fight with Isis.
French company The Party Films Sales has sealed deals on “Four Daughters” for: Benelux (Cineart); Spain (Caramel Films); Italy (I Wonder); Switzerland (Trigon); Sweden (Triart); Denmark (Camera Film); Norway (Arthaus); Finland (Cinemanse); Poland (New Horizons); Greece (Ama Films); former Yougoslavia (Discovery) and Turkey (Bir Film).
Rights to the film for multiple other territories are under negotiations, the company said.
Ben Hania – whose previous works comprise “Beauty and the Dogs” and “The Man Who Sold His Skin” – in “Four Daughters” delves into the story of Tunisia’s Olfa Hamrouni who rose to international prominence in April 2016 when she publicized the radicalization of her two teenage daughters who had left Tunisia to fight with Isis.
- 5/24/2023
- by Nick Vivarelli and Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
by Cláudio Alves
The competition continues to heat up at the 76th Cannes Film Festival, with various contenders staking their claim on the Palme. It may be time for Nuri Bilge Ceylan to win his second. About Dry Grass is his seventh competition feature, including 2014's grand champion Winter Sleep. Then again, the critics have reached a consensus so far, with the favorite film being Jonathan Glazer's return to feature filmmaking after a decade-long pause, The Zone of Interest. Kaouther Ben Hania's follow-up to the Oscar-nominated The Man Who Sold His Skin is less acclaimed but might yet prove an awards contender. Four Daughters is one of two documentaries in competition.
For this 'Cannes at Home' adventure, let's look at some of these directors' past successes, their best films according to yours. There's Ceylan's Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, Glazer's Under the Skin, and Ben Hania's Beauty and the Dogs…...
The competition continues to heat up at the 76th Cannes Film Festival, with various contenders staking their claim on the Palme. It may be time for Nuri Bilge Ceylan to win his second. About Dry Grass is his seventh competition feature, including 2014's grand champion Winter Sleep. Then again, the critics have reached a consensus so far, with the favorite film being Jonathan Glazer's return to feature filmmaking after a decade-long pause, The Zone of Interest. Kaouther Ben Hania's follow-up to the Oscar-nominated The Man Who Sold His Skin is less acclaimed but might yet prove an awards contender. Four Daughters is one of two documentaries in competition.
For this 'Cannes at Home' adventure, let's look at some of these directors' past successes, their best films according to yours. There's Ceylan's Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, Glazer's Under the Skin, and Ben Hania's Beauty and the Dogs…...
- 5/22/2023
- by Cláudio Alves
- FilmExperience
Kirsten Niehuus, CEO at Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, which funds films and TV series production in the Berlin region, and Simone Baumann, managing director of German Films, which promotes and supports the release of German films abroad, welcomed a wide array of guests to their garden party at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday.
Three Medienboard-funded films are in this year’s Competition: Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania’s “Four Daughters,” Austrian filmmaker Jessica Hausner’s “Club Zero,” and U.S. helmer Wes Anderson’s “Asteroid City.”
Niehuus told Variety: “Those are three very different productions, but it shows the spectrum [of films] that Medienboard supports.” Tunisian films, like “Four Daughters,” need international co-production funding to get made, she said, and “we believe in world cinema, so were very happy [to back it].” Hausner is “one of the most impressive female filmmakers [in the world], and I think there should be more female filmmakers on the Croisette and every other ‘A’ festival,...
Three Medienboard-funded films are in this year’s Competition: Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania’s “Four Daughters,” Austrian filmmaker Jessica Hausner’s “Club Zero,” and U.S. helmer Wes Anderson’s “Asteroid City.”
Niehuus told Variety: “Those are three very different productions, but it shows the spectrum [of films] that Medienboard supports.” Tunisian films, like “Four Daughters,” need international co-production funding to get made, she said, and “we believe in world cinema, so were very happy [to back it].” Hausner is “one of the most impressive female filmmakers [in the world], and I think there should be more female filmmakers on the Croisette and every other ‘A’ festival,...
- 5/22/2023
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
It’s easy to get trapped in circuitous arguments surrounding documentary ethics at the best of times, but Kaouther Ben Hania’s metafictional “Four Daughters” — involving young children, abuse, trauma and re-enactments — appears to chart these knotty waters as a barefaced challenge. This Tunisian entry into Cannes’ Official Competition is a bold behemoth of an undertaking, which is veiled, unveiled and then re-veiled with endless angles and perspectives; it’s a veritable snakepit of uneasy decisions that grips you with its novel approach to so-called truth-telling before lapsing into something a little more conventional. Far from a gamble made in the service of naturalism, this heightened and strange piece of fiction re-enactment exposes itself for critique in a way that you almost have to respect. For its sins, it seems to —just about— succeed.
“Four Daughters” orbits the trauma of a Tunisian woman named Olfa and her youngest daughters, Tayssir and Eya.
“Four Daughters” orbits the trauma of a Tunisian woman named Olfa and her youngest daughters, Tayssir and Eya.
- 5/21/2023
- by Steph Green
- Indiewire
Kaouther Ben Hania, the Oscar-nominated director of “The Man Who Sold His Skin” whose latest film “Four Daughters” is competing at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, will next direct “Mimesis,” an epic love story set in Tunisia.
While the plot is under wraps, the story is set in two different periods, the 1990s and the 1940s, paying tribute to cinema and Arab-Muslim cultural heritage. It’s being produced by Nadim Cheikhrouha at Tanit Films, who produced Ben Hania’s “Four Daughters” and her previous film “The Man Who Sold His Skin” which world premiered at Venice where it won best actor for Yahya Mahayni and was nominated for best international film at the Oscars in 2021.
Mahayn starred in the film as a Syrian refugee who accepts to have a large Schengen visa, the document he desperately needs to enter Europe, tattooed on his back by a famous artist, thus...
While the plot is under wraps, the story is set in two different periods, the 1990s and the 1940s, paying tribute to cinema and Arab-Muslim cultural heritage. It’s being produced by Nadim Cheikhrouha at Tanit Films, who produced Ben Hania’s “Four Daughters” and her previous film “The Man Who Sold His Skin” which world premiered at Venice where it won best actor for Yahya Mahayni and was nominated for best international film at the Oscars in 2021.
Mahayn starred in the film as a Syrian refugee who accepts to have a large Schengen visa, the document he desperately needs to enter Europe, tattooed on his back by a famous artist, thus...
- 5/21/2023
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
Another first-timer in the comp, Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania came to Cannes in 2017 for the Un Certain Regard section selected Beauty and the Dogs. She was last showcased in Venice with The Man Who Sold His Skin (2020 – Orizzonti section). Four Daughters (aka Les filles d’Olfa) proposes a hybrid look that might remind some what Kitty Green achieved in the recent past.
Between light and darkness stands Olfa, a Tunisian woman and the mother of four daughters. One day, her two older daughters disappear. To fill in their absence, the filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania invites professional actresses and invents a unique cinema experience that will lift the veil on Olfa and her daughters’ life stories.…...
Between light and darkness stands Olfa, a Tunisian woman and the mother of four daughters. One day, her two older daughters disappear. To fill in their absence, the filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania invites professional actresses and invents a unique cinema experience that will lift the veil on Olfa and her daughters’ life stories.…...
- 5/20/2023
- by Eric Lavallée
- IONCINEMA.com
It is rare to get a glimpse into the inner lives of those who join the harsh, nihilistic world of Isis. It’s even more rare – almost impossible – to understand the women who have given up their freedom and disappeared under the shroud of niqab.
It is a life of poverty and the strictest Islamic discipline. A life of marginalization from the world and one where violence is a constant theme. And a life utterly cut off from family.
It is through this latter keyhole that “Four Daughters” (“Les Filles d’Olfa”) director Kaouther Ben Hania peers into in an unusual verite docu-drama about the shattering of a family when two daughters join radical Islam.
Tunisian mother Olfa has four daughters, all beautiful. We meet two of them, Eya and Tayssir, now in their 20s, dressed in jeans and t-shirts, who are joined by two actresses who play their missing older sisters,...
It is a life of poverty and the strictest Islamic discipline. A life of marginalization from the world and one where violence is a constant theme. And a life utterly cut off from family.
It is through this latter keyhole that “Four Daughters” (“Les Filles d’Olfa”) director Kaouther Ben Hania peers into in an unusual verite docu-drama about the shattering of a family when two daughters join radical Islam.
Tunisian mother Olfa has four daughters, all beautiful. We meet two of them, Eya and Tayssir, now in their 20s, dressed in jeans and t-shirts, who are joined by two actresses who play their missing older sisters,...
- 5/20/2023
- by Sharon Waxman
- The Wrap
Kaouther Ben Hania’s heartbreaking Four Daughters (Les filles d’Olfa) pulls you in with a question: Who is Olfa Hamrouni?
She rose to international fame in 2016 when she criticized the Tunisian government for not preventing her daughters from joining the Islamic State in Libya. In interviews from those years, Hamrouni is a bereaved mother. Her voice aches with pain as she recounts the loss of her two eldest daughters, and it shakes with anger when she speaks of the government’s listless response.
The Olfa of Ben Hania’s docu-fiction strikes a more relaxed pose. She has traded her pink hijabs for a black scarf, tightly woven around her head. She’s freer with her laughs and more pointed with her asides. Grief still undergirds her anecdotes, but so does a palpable willingness to share. She eagerly explains how she believes a movie about her life will help spread an...
She rose to international fame in 2016 when she criticized the Tunisian government for not preventing her daughters from joining the Islamic State in Libya. In interviews from those years, Hamrouni is a bereaved mother. Her voice aches with pain as she recounts the loss of her two eldest daughters, and it shakes with anger when she speaks of the government’s listless response.
The Olfa of Ben Hania’s docu-fiction strikes a more relaxed pose. She has traded her pink hijabs for a black scarf, tightly woven around her head. She’s freer with her laughs and more pointed with her asides. Grief still undergirds her anecdotes, but so does a palpable willingness to share. She eagerly explains how she believes a movie about her life will help spread an...
- 5/19/2023
- by Lovia Gyarkye
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Late on in Kaouther Ben Hania’s compelling, ambitious hybrid “Four Daughters,” Olfa Hamrouni — the film’s focus, its fixation and its most charismatically contradictory character — strokes a purring, heavily pregnant ginger cat. Sometimes, she tells us, a cat will be so scared for her babies that she eats them. It’s Olfa’s covert acknowledgement that her own misguided protective urge, forged by her hard history with men and mother alike, might have contributed to her life’s great, rupturing tragedy: when, in 2015, the elder two of her four girls ran away to join Isis. But it also recalls one of her earlier to-camera segments, when she described her daughters, as though shielding herself from the pain of the real with the language of fable, as having been “devoured by the wolf.” So which is it: Were Ghofran and Rahma, 16 and 15 at the time of their disappearance, eaten up...
- 5/19/2023
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
Oscar-nominated Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania is back in Cannes with “Four Daughters” a powerful drama that mixes documentary and fiction to delve into the story of Tunisia’s Olfa Hamrouni who rose to international prominence in April 2016 when she publicized the radicalization of her two teenage daughters who had left Tunisia to fight with Isis.
The film, which is the only Arab entry in competition, stars Egyptian-Tunisian star Hend Sabri in the lead role of an actor who must play Hamrouni and gets coaching from the real Olfa on how to prepare for the role. Ben Hania spoke to Variety about the bold choice she made.
What drew you to want to dig deep into Olfa’s story?
So it was in 2016, and there was media interest around this story and a lot of similar stories. And I heard the mother giving an interview on the radio. The way she was talking,...
The film, which is the only Arab entry in competition, stars Egyptian-Tunisian star Hend Sabri in the lead role of an actor who must play Hamrouni and gets coaching from the real Olfa on how to prepare for the role. Ben Hania spoke to Variety about the bold choice she made.
What drew you to want to dig deep into Olfa’s story?
So it was in 2016, and there was media interest around this story and a lot of similar stories. And I heard the mother giving an interview on the radio. The way she was talking,...
- 5/19/2023
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
This could be the year African cinema conquers Cannes. The 76th festival has more Africa-set features in the official selection than ever, including two in competition — Four Daughters from Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania (The Man Who Sold His Skin) and Banel & Adama, the debut feature from Senegalese-French filmmaker Ramata-Toulaye Sy. Then there’s Omar la Fraise, an Algeria-set Midnight Screening entry from Elias Belkeddar, starring Reda Kateb and Benoît Magimel, and four Un Certain Regard titles: Moroccan films Les Meutes from Kamal Lazraq and the documentary The Mother of All Lies from Asmae El Moudir; Omen, the feature debut of Belgian-Congolese hip-hop artist Baloji; and Mohamed Kordofani’s Goodbye Julia, the first Sudanese film to screen on the Croisette.
The selection ranges across genres and cinematic styles. Omar la Fraise is a crime comedy that draws inspiration from the films of Sergio Leone and Takeshi Kitano in its story...
The selection ranges across genres and cinematic styles. Omar la Fraise is a crime comedy that draws inspiration from the films of Sergio Leone and Takeshi Kitano in its story...
- 5/17/2023
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Cannes Docs, the Marché du Film sidebar dedicated to documentary film, has unveiled the line-up of its Doc Day, which unspools on May 23, as the final event in at Cannes Docs.
Veteran U.S. cinematographer and documentary filmmaker Kirsten Johnson, president of Cannes Festival’s Œil d’or Jury which hands out an award to the best doc in Cannes’ Official Selection, will open the morning session in a conversation with writer, director and producer Guetty Felin.
Entitled “Cinema and the Pleasures of the Impossible,” it will explore the many ways filmmaking creates possibilities to search for the invisible, to bring life to the dead and to time travel in their lives.
“It’s an exciting and side-stepping angle compared to usual industry talks,” explains the head of Cannes Docs Pierre-Alexis Chevit, “which we really like at Cannes Docs, because that is what we’re trying to do: Offer talks...
Veteran U.S. cinematographer and documentary filmmaker Kirsten Johnson, president of Cannes Festival’s Œil d’or Jury which hands out an award to the best doc in Cannes’ Official Selection, will open the morning session in a conversation with writer, director and producer Guetty Felin.
Entitled “Cinema and the Pleasures of the Impossible,” it will explore the many ways filmmaking creates possibilities to search for the invisible, to bring life to the dead and to time travel in their lives.
“It’s an exciting and side-stepping angle compared to usual industry talks,” explains the head of Cannes Docs Pierre-Alexis Chevit, “which we really like at Cannes Docs, because that is what we’re trying to do: Offer talks...
- 5/12/2023
- by Lise Pedersen
- Variety Film + TV
“Cannes is going back to the future of cinema,” said Iris Knobloch, the new president of the Cannes Film Festival, unveiling the lineup for the 2023 event on Thursday. And looking at this year’s selection, it’s hard to argue with her.
The 76th Cannes International Film Festival looks like an all-killer, no-filler program, with some of the biggest names in international cinema, many of whom got their start on the Croisette, returning to that famed red carpet. The 2023 competition lineup includes new films from Wes Anderson, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Ken Loach, Todd Haynes, Nanni Moretti and Aki Kaurismäki. In addition, Cannes has packed its out-of-competition screenings with blockbusters, including Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, as well as a new documentary from Oscar winner Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave).
Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City, one of the director’s typically-quirky and star-studded affairs,...
The 76th Cannes International Film Festival looks like an all-killer, no-filler program, with some of the biggest names in international cinema, many of whom got their start on the Croisette, returning to that famed red carpet. The 2023 competition lineup includes new films from Wes Anderson, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Ken Loach, Todd Haynes, Nanni Moretti and Aki Kaurismäki. In addition, Cannes has packed its out-of-competition screenings with blockbusters, including Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, as well as a new documentary from Oscar winner Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave).
Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City, one of the director’s typically-quirky and star-studded affairs,...
- 4/13/2023
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Audrey Diwan, director of the 2021 Venice Golden Lion winner “Happening,” has been named jury president of the 62nd annual Critics Week.
The jury members include Portuguese director of photography Rui Poças; German actor, choreographer and dancer Franz Rogowski (“A Hidden Life”); Indian journalist, curator and Berlinale programming advisor Meenakshi Shedde; and Sundance programming director Kim Yutani.
The Critics Week sidebar runs parallel to the Cannes Film Festival, and focuses on first and second films. Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania (“The Man who Sold his Skin”) served as last year’s jury president.
Diwan, a former journalist, made her debut with “Losing It” in 2019. Two years later, the filmmaker took home the Venice Film Festival’s top prize for her sophomore feature, the searing 2021 abortion drama “Happening,” which was snapped up for distribution by IFC Films. She became only the second woman (after 2020’s “Nomadland” helmer Chloe Zhao) to win the Golden Lion since Agnès Varda,...
The jury members include Portuguese director of photography Rui Poças; German actor, choreographer and dancer Franz Rogowski (“A Hidden Life”); Indian journalist, curator and Berlinale programming advisor Meenakshi Shedde; and Sundance programming director Kim Yutani.
The Critics Week sidebar runs parallel to the Cannes Film Festival, and focuses on first and second films. Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania (“The Man who Sold his Skin”) served as last year’s jury president.
Diwan, a former journalist, made her debut with “Losing It” in 2019. Two years later, the filmmaker took home the Venice Film Festival’s top prize for her sophomore feature, the searing 2021 abortion drama “Happening,” which was snapped up for distribution by IFC Films. She became only the second woman (after 2020’s “Nomadland” helmer Chloe Zhao) to win the Golden Lion since Agnès Varda,...
- 4/12/2023
- by Manori Ravindran
- Variety Film + TV
Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Film Festival Unveils Jury
Egyptian star Nelly Karim, best known internationally for her performance in The Blue Elephant and Clash, Tunisian Oscar-nominated The Man Who Sold His Skin director Kaouther Ben Hania, Georgian film director Levan Koguashvili (Brighton 4th) and Palestinian actor Ali Suleiman have been unveiled as members of the jury for Saudi Arabia’s upcoming second edition of the Red Sea International Film Festival (Dec 1-10). They join previously announced jury president Oliver Stone. The jury will decide the winner of the main feature competition focused on Arab world, Asian and African cinema. Last year, Koguashvili won the inaugural prize for Brighton 4th.
Warner Bros. Discovery Appoints China President & Western Pacific Commercial Boss
Warner Bros. Discovery has come close to rounding off its international leadership structure by setting two key leadership roles in its Western Pacific team, appointing a China President and SVP,...
Egyptian star Nelly Karim, best known internationally for her performance in The Blue Elephant and Clash, Tunisian Oscar-nominated The Man Who Sold His Skin director Kaouther Ben Hania, Georgian film director Levan Koguashvili (Brighton 4th) and Palestinian actor Ali Suleiman have been unveiled as members of the jury for Saudi Arabia’s upcoming second edition of the Red Sea International Film Festival (Dec 1-10). They join previously announced jury president Oliver Stone. The jury will decide the winner of the main feature competition focused on Arab world, Asian and African cinema. Last year, Koguashvili won the inaugural prize for Brighton 4th.
Warner Bros. Discovery Appoints China President & Western Pacific Commercial Boss
Warner Bros. Discovery has come close to rounding off its international leadership structure by setting two key leadership roles in its Western Pacific team, appointing a China President and SVP,...
- 11/24/2022
- by Max Goldbart and Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
Fifteen countries represented amongst the 18 individuals.
European producers platform Ace Producers has selected 18 producers for the latest edition of its Ace Producers’ Network programme, running in 2022 and 2023.
The 18 producers include Nadim Cheikhrouha of France’s Tanit Films, who will produce Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania’s next feature Mime. Cheikhrouha and Ben Hania secured an Oscar nomination for best international feature film last year for The Man Who Sold His Skin.
Scroll down for the full list of producers
Sara Laszlo, CEO at Hungary’s Campfilm, is another Ace Producers participant, through Denes Nagy’s The Vacation. Laszlo’s previous...
European producers platform Ace Producers has selected 18 producers for the latest edition of its Ace Producers’ Network programme, running in 2022 and 2023.
The 18 producers include Nadim Cheikhrouha of France’s Tanit Films, who will produce Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania’s next feature Mime. Cheikhrouha and Ben Hania secured an Oscar nomination for best international feature film last year for The Man Who Sold His Skin.
Scroll down for the full list of producers
Sara Laszlo, CEO at Hungary’s Campfilm, is another Ace Producers participant, through Denes Nagy’s The Vacation. Laszlo’s previous...
- 9/12/2022
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
Keep track of all the submissions for best international feature at the 2023 Academy Awards.
Entries for the 2023 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.
Scroll down for profiles of each Oscar entry
An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.
Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between January 1, 2022 and November 30, 2022. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 3, 2022.
A shortlist of 15 finalists is...
Entries for the 2023 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.
Scroll down for profiles of each Oscar entry
An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.
Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between January 1, 2022 and November 30, 2022. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 3, 2022.
A shortlist of 15 finalists is...
- 9/12/2022
- by Screen staff
- ScreenDaily
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