A few months before the revolution in Tunisia, 18 year-old Farah has a passion for life and sings in a political rock band. Her mother, knowing the dangers of Tunisia, wants her to pursue a career as a doctor.
Hedi, a young man with great dreams, is struggling his way through social conventions in Tunisia. While his mother tries to decide his life for him, Hedi meets Rim and suddenly he discovers that his world goes beyond and above conventions.
Director:
Mohamed Ben Attia
Stars:
Majd Mastoura,
Rym Ben Messaoud,
Sabah Bouzouita
A coming-of-age comedy/drama set in Tunisia. Twelve-year-old Noura is an impressionable boy who must learn to reconcile two conflicting worlds - the loving world of Muslim women and the ... See full summary »
Director:
Férid Boughedir
Stars:
Selim Boughedir,
Mustapha Adouani,
Rabia Ben Abdallah
Summer, 1967. La Goulette, the touristic beach of Tunisia, is the site where three nice seventeen-year-old girls live: Gigi, Sicilian and Catholic; Meriem, Tunisian and Arab; Tina, French ... See full summary »
Director:
Férid Boughedir
Stars:
Sonia Mankaï,
Ava Cohen-Jonathan,
Sarah Pariente
Tunisia, before the revolution. A man on a motorbike, razor blade in hand, prowls the streets of Tunis slashing women's buttocks. They call him The Challat, aka "The Blade", and the mere ... See full summary »
The Nazi occupation of Tunisia strains the bonds of friendship between a Muslim woman and a Sephardic Jewish woman who are both preparing for their marriages.
Haythem, a journalist who helps the police in their investigation against Hanane Lahmar, a clinic owner and a mafia boss specialized in organ trafficking and prostitution.
A historical fiction story that goes back to the 1990s where a passionate suburban young man seeks his destiny in the dark streets of the Tunisian capital, stumbles across love, on his journey of perfecting the art of traditional Mezwed.
After more than two decades working for Tunisia national public radio, Youssef is on his way to retirement. Somewhere in the town of Sidi Bouzid, a young man sets himself on fire. Youssef ... See full summary »
Tunis, summer 2010, a few months before the Revolution: Farah, 18 years-old, has just graduated and her family already sees her as a future doctor. But she doesn't think the same way. She sings in a political rock band. She has a passion for life, gets drunk, discovers love and her city by night against the will of her mother Hayet, who knows Tunisia and its dangers too well.Written by
Carthage Film Festival
In a scene when Farah talks with her father in a restaurant in the background we can see Nouri Bouzid who is the father of Layla Bouzid and he is also a famous director in Tunisia. See more »
"As I Open My Eyes" is a story about tense political situation (before Arab Spring) without a political message. It would have been too easy to dramatize this coming-of-age -story with extreme episodes of resistance against Tunisian totalitarianism, just before Jasmine Revolution in 2011. Instead, we follow quite familiar narrative that could happen' anywhere in Europe: young multi-talented woman, Farah has to decide if she wants to become a rock singer or to agree with her mother and go to medial school.
Most of the conflicts in this narrative are inside the family. Only lately do we understand, as well as Farah, that her career as a rock-singer has been protected by a family friend. When the real political situation is exposed and the band has to stop performing, the bigger conflict with the totalitarian police forces is even too familiar from many similar movies. It seems to be very difficult to find the right tone for this kind of situation: to show the psychological effects without exploitation of the subject and female characters. This film is trying to find a compromise between psychological and political realism, but there are too many characters in the way.
The last third part of the film is kind of lame considering what we have seen before, and there are some loose strings in the background story of Farah's parents, but still it's a film that will widen your cultural horizon a lot. The wild and beautiful songs that Farah sings are reason enough to see this movie.
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"As I Open My Eyes" is a story about tense political situation (before Arab Spring) without a political message. It would have been too easy to dramatize this coming-of-age -story with extreme episodes of resistance against Tunisian totalitarianism, just before Jasmine Revolution in 2011. Instead, we follow quite familiar narrative that could happen' anywhere in Europe: young multi-talented woman, Farah has to decide if she wants to become a rock singer or to agree with her mother and go to medial school.
Most of the conflicts in this narrative are inside the family. Only lately do we understand, as well as Farah, that her career as a rock-singer has been protected by a family friend. When the real political situation is exposed and the band has to stop performing, the bigger conflict with the totalitarian police forces is even too familiar from many similar movies. It seems to be very difficult to find the right tone for this kind of situation: to show the psychological effects without exploitation of the subject and female characters. This film is trying to find a compromise between psychological and political realism, but there are too many characters in the way.
The last third part of the film is kind of lame considering what we have seen before, and there are some loose strings in the background story of Farah's parents, but still it's a film that will widen your cultural horizon a lot. The wild and beautiful songs that Farah sings are reason enough to see this movie.