Feature Narrative
TOTAL BUDGET
US $775,000
CONFIRMED FINANCING
US $725,000
CONTACT
moufida.fedhila@gmail.com
yol.filmhouse@gmail.com
21628607703
Amel is released after serving time in prison for an adulterous affair. In the lower depths of Tunis, she searches for her missing son Moumen. During her journey, Amel has to face a Tunisian society in full collapse.
Amel works in a factory in Tunis. She lives with her alcoholic husband, Tahar, a former football player, and their only son Moumen, a teenage football goalkeeper. To convince the boss of the factory to provide her with connections for her son, Amel betrays her fellow workers, who have been organizing a strike.
When Amel meets the connection, Imed, a wealthy businessman, he takes advantage of the situation and abuses Amel. When the police catch them, Amel is imprisoned with the charge of adultery and prostitution.
Destroyed by the scandal, Moumen halts his football career and finds refuge at his late brother's friend, Djo, a homosexual drug dealer. Moumen starts using drugs, and enters the world of prostitution to make a living.
After her release from prison, Amel looks for Moumen in the lower and violent streets of Tunis. During the long and taxing search for her missing son, Amel has to face the falling Tunisian society.
Streams is a heartbreaking drama about a Tunisian mother who was sexually abused, who faces a society ravaged by violence and a depraved police system. The film is also a total immersion in the world of the night in Tunis, with all its excesses, drugs, sex and prostitution.
Streams is the interweaving of three themes that have always haunted me: family, guilt, and love. Through it, I try to describe and translate into an economy of words and gestures, the complexity of the existence of a family. This film is also a way for me to return to my past as a young footballer in Tunis, and to film these three worlds that I crossed with fury and noise: family, football, and the street.
It is a film full of emotions, orchestrated carefully between the axes of characters of the family; Moumen and his descent into hell, and Amel on the way of the cross and redemption. This drama aims to reinforce the feeling, the perception of these different universes in which the characters survive.
The context of the post-revolutionary Tunisian society shows how much corruption has developed, how much violence has spread, and how obscurantism and criminality have seized the minds of individuals. Society has simply failed.
In this initiatory journey, this family finds—during its battle against society—the possibility of redemption by the inexhaustible force of love. Streams tells the story of this love.
Streams is inspired by the true story of a mother abused by a corrupt system, struggling to save her footballer son from the lower and violent streets of Tunis. It is a film about a woman who fights for her freedom, and moves forward in a changing Tunisia. It’s a fable on the courage of women in a deeply patriarchal society. It is a hymn to beauty and liberty throughout an audacious mise-en-scène.
This is a strong and poignant film with a nocturnal atmosphere, rich in situations and sets. An emotional journey experienced by a mother and her son, it is a tender and tough film about contemporary Tunisian society. The story that Hmili wants to share is that of a family lost in its own misfortune, seeking its liberation and survival.
Former professional footballer, Mehdi Hmili, includes a lot of autobiographical elements in his film. He retraces his own story in the depths of Tunis, paying homage to his mother who saved him from violence and self-destruction. He takes a unique, somber, and critical look at the contemporary Tunisian society.
In telling the story of Amel, this woman who fights for her son and his dignity, it is the revolting Tunisia that she symbolically represents. Proletarian and broken Tunisia, which fights against the morals of a corrupted and hypocritical society.
Streams is an accessible, realistic, poetic, and political film all at once. It is a tragic tale that, by the miracle of love, touches people’s hearts and sparks positive thoughts in their minds.
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