Archive of films The Season of Men / La saison des hommes
Aicha married Said when she was eighteen years old. The same fate awaited her that has awaited so many other Tunisian women: living at her mother-in-law’s house with her sisters-in-law. Her husband has left to work in Tunis and he and many other husbands only return for a month each year during “the season of men.” But Aicha doesn’t want to accept this and thus she decides to follow her husband.
Synopsis
Aicha married Said when she was eighteen years old. The same fate awaited her that has awaited so many other Tunisian women: living at her mother-in-law’s house with her sisters-in-law. Her husband has left to work in Tunis and he and many other husbands only return for a month each year during “the season of men.” Aicha, dissatisfied by the incessant waiting while in eternal disharmony with her mother-in-law, decides to set out for Tunis to be with Said. But he will only allow her to come on the condition that she first bear him a son. She eventually does so and goes to Tunis. But the son is autistic and Said’s disappointment prevents the situation from being resolved as Aicha long expected it would. Feeling despair once again, she and her two older daughters return to the family house in Djerba. There they seek to find a way to live and love according to their imaginations and not according to conventions dictated by traditional society. At the 2000 International Festival of Francophone Films in Namur The Season of Men won the award for Best Actress.
About the director
Moufida Tlatli was born in Tunisia where she was raised in a traditional family. In 1968 she graduated in editing from Paris’s IDHEC film school and returned to Tunisia in 1972. Between 1970 and 1990 her name appeared in the credits of most of the important Arabic films. She shot The Silences of the Palace in 1993, a film which won the Camera d’Or Special Mention at Cannes in 1994 and the Critics’ Prize at the Toronto IFF. The Season of Men (La saison des hommes) is her latest film.
About the film
Black & white, 35 mm
Section: | Maghreb |
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Director: | Moufida Tlatli |
Screenplay: | Moufida Tlatli |
Dir. of Photography: | Faouzi Thabet |
Music: | Anouar Brahem |
Editor: | Isabelle Devinck |
Producer: | Margaret Menegoz, Mohamed Ttlatli |
Production: | Les Films du Losange, Maghrebfilms Carthage |
Cast: | Rabiaa Ben Abdallah, Sabah Bouzouita, Ghalia Ben Ali, Hend Sabri, Ezzedine Guennoun, Mouna Noureddine, Azza Baaziz, Lila Falkat, Adel Hergal, Houyem Rassaa, Kaouther Bel Haj Ali |