Arabian Nights

Colour, 35 mm
Luxembourg, Belgium, Austria, 2007, 110 min
Section: Variety Critics’ Choice

Synopsis

A Luxembourg man’s obsession with an Algerian woman leads to tragedy in Arabian Nights, whose underlying theme deals with Westerners’ misconceptions of the Arab world. When handsome young train conductor Georges (Jules Werner) first meets Yamina (Sabrina Ouazani) en route from Luxembourg City to Bettembourg, she’s just a passenger whose ticket he needs to inspect. But the next day, she’s aboard the train again, on the run from mysterious assailants. Yamina refuses to go to the police, so kindly Georges offers her a hiding place in his holiday cabin. As she shares her story, his compassion grows into fascination, friendship and maybe even love. For naive Georges, Yamina reps an exciting – and exotic – distraction in his well-ordered life. When she suddenly disappears, Georges determines to find her at any cost, discovering along the way that neither she nor Algeria is anything like what he expected.