In competition “horizons of Arab cinema” at The Youssef Cherif Rizkallah edition of the Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF), which took place from November 20 to 29, 2019the Tunisian film A son (bik n3ich) From Mehdi Barsaoui, with the main roles Sami Bouajila and Najla Ben Abdallah, has just won three prizes.
Since its projection in the gala on the first day of the festival, at the opening of this competition, A son had been greatly appreciated by the spectators, whether professional or not, both for his cinematographic qualities and for the subjects he deals with. For a week, he had also been at the center of many discussions and debates between all those who had seen him and even those who would have liked to see him but who had not been able to have tickets.
A son, First fictional feature of the young director Mehdi Barsaoui, had made his first at the Venice Mostra and had won the prize for best actor for Sami Bouajila. He had then been at several festivals, including those of Hamburg, London, Mumbai, Namur and Carthage.
Synopsis: Tunisia, summer 2011. Farés and Meriem spin happy days with Aziz, their 11 -year -old son. During a stay in the south of the country, an event changes the course of their lives. While a race against the clock starts, long -lived truths are starting to resurface.
Three juries therefore decided to grant a reward to this beautiful film:
- The special price of the Salah Abou Seif jury:
The members of the jury of the competition “Horizons of Arabic cinema”, that is, the programmer Piers Handling (Canada), president, actress Hana Shiha (Egypt), the producer and director of the Stefan Kitanov festival (Bulgaria), the German actor Thomas Kretschmann and the actress Betty Taoutel (Lebanon) decided to grant the special price of Salah Abou Seif A son by Mehdi Barsaoui because it is a ” Film well mastered by a director whose first film, which is carried by two exceptional actors, and that this film tells how the relationship of a couple can deteriorate because of a tragic accident following which we discover a secret ».
Very moved, Mehdi Barsaoui said how important this price is for him and thanked the jury and Mohamed Hefzy President of CIFF and Ahmed Shawky artistic director of the festival for having believed in his film.
- The UNFPA (United Nations Population Funds) prize:
For the past two years, this award has been granted by UNFPA to the best Arab film with the theme of health and the population. For this 2019 edition, the members of the jury, Dalia Abou Senna, Consultant at UNFPA Egypt, Hany Khalifa, Egyptian director and Sandra de Castro Buffington, founder and president of Storyaction, LLC, granted this prize to the film A son Because he tells the story of a family whose fate will change following a shot. Furthermore, this film questions the role and nature of paternity: is it natural or is it learning? Does it be acquired over time? We also see the importance of childhood and asks a moral question: should we save a child at the expense of another? The film also deals with organ donation, and shows new aspects of the problem.
By receiving this award, Mehdi Barsaoui, very happy, thanked the jury and said that his “little heart may not bear” a second prize and that one cannot imagine how happy it is that my film liked so much in Egypt.
- The price of the best Arab film, all sections combined:
The members of the jury, producer Asma Graimiche (Morocco), Director of Festival Eduardo Guillot (Spain) and actress Shereen Reda (Egypt) granted the prize for best Arab film, all sections confused with the film A son.
When he went on stage, the young director joked that he did not pay any wine pot to get this third prize of the evening. He then added that one cannot imagine what he feels and that he cannot not offer this reward to his whole team, which is in reality his family and with which he spent the most beautiful moments of his life.
Besides the fact that A son is a very beautiful film, granting it these three prizes is a kind of recognition of the quality of Tunisian cinema in recent years, which is more and more present in cinema festivals, including the most important of them, like those of Cannes, Venice, Berlin or Toronto. Besides, it was noted during this edition of the CIFF because the cinema professionals hastened to go see the programmed Tunisian films. Even if they did not like all Tunisian films in Cairo, they discussed them, analyzed them, compared them…. What is amazing is that some spoke of Tunisian films from previous editions and still commented them, such as for example Tunis by night de Elyes Baccar, who won the Best actor Prize in 2017 for Raouf Ben Amor or the film Jaida de Salma Baccar also scheduled for 2017 and which had great success with Egyptian spectators, envious of Tunisian women’s rights Or Mahmoud Ben Mahmoud’s film Fatwa who won during the 40th edition of the CIFF, the Saad Eldin Wahba Prize for the best Arab film, in the “Horizons of Arab Cinema” competition.
This interest in Tunisian cinema also gave rise to a keen interest in Tunisia, its democratic transition, its policy and especially its code of personal status and the rights of Tunisian women. Several spectators had also been very surprised when after watching the film A sonthey had noted that there were still in Tunisia differences between the rights of men and women and that the father was the only tutor of minor children, and many were very disappointed to learn that the bill on inheritance equality had not been voted.
Neïla Driss
Read on the same subject:
