Mouna Noureddine Movies

The gulf between men and women in Tunisia -- political, psychological, and physical -- is explored in this downbeat drama from director Moufida Tlatli. On the island of Djerba, most of the men spend 11 months of the year away from home in Tunis, where they work and send money home to support the wives and children they leave behind. Aicha (Rabiaa Ben Abdallah) has told her husband Said (Ezzedine Gennoun) that she wants to live with him in Tunis. However, they have two teenage daughters, Meriem (Ghalia Ben Ali) and Emma (Hend Sabri), and he will allow Aicha to join him only under the condition that she bear him a son. Aicha weaves rugs in her spare time to help pay for her passage to Tunis, while she and her friends fend off the depression and desperate loneliness of their marriages. Meanwhile, Meriem, who is newly married, is dealing with her anxieties about sex, while her sister Emma is having an affair with one of the few married men on the island. La Saison Des Hommes was shown at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival as part of the "Un Certain Regard" program. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Sabra (Fatma Khemiri) is a young Moslem woman who seeks to further her education in this poignant social drama. Her poor family struggles to survive, and her father (Othman Khemili) objects to Sabra's intellectual pursuits. She embraces feminist ideals, ignoring traditional beliefs and studying for exams by candlelight. Flashbacks show Sabra as a young girl (Basma Tadjin) being encouraged by her mother (Mouna Noureddine), a woman bound by tradition but mindful of the changing world. She prepares Sabra for the inevitable social changes that were not part of her generation. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide

Rich in environmental mood and ethnic color, this human drama chronicles the lives and rituals of a nomadic Berber tribe in the southern Tunisian desert, especially focusing on a son about to inherit the full mantle of leadership. When he sees that their sheep are threatened with a possibly devastating illness, the precarious nature of the group's existence is brought home to him and he leaves to gain a livelihood and knowledge in the city. Once he gets back, bringing money and presents, it first appears that the group will be assured of a better future because of his enterprising outreach. Yet military and governmental officials arrive on the scene to take a census and the young man is conscripted, against his will. This bodes ill for the group -- he dies while in the armed forces and his wife takes on the responsibility of traveling to the city to retrieve his body. As the camera follows her to Tunis -- the desert, the bus ride, the transformation to an eventual cityscape, and her sojourn in the strange metropolis poetically evoke the clash of cultures and lifestyles between the nomads and their city cousins. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide