Feature Narrative Film
TOTAL BUDGET
US $593,446
CONFIRMED FINANCING
US $431,941
CONTACTS
walidtayaa@gmail.com
+33 634058578
r.magnien@matproductions.fr
+33 607899209
mh.attia@cinetelefilms.net
+216 70731985
May 2004, Tunis is full of excitement; it is the Arab Summit. In this frantic and burlesque atmosphere, an electrician, a choreographer, a sick man, and a professional mourner cross paths without ever really meeting, striving to deal with their personal problems.
2004 - Tunis, the Arab Summit. In this frantic and burlesque atmosphere, characters cross paths without ever really meeting, striving to deal with their personal problems.
Hamadi, electrician, has to repair a faulty supply system in a dilapidated apartment block. Hamadi is attracted to Naziha, a divorcee in her fifties who lives in the building. Salha is trying by all means to earn a living in order to provide for her family. She can be a professional mourner and cry in deceased people’s houses, then immediately after, enliven wedding parties.
Nadia, choreographer, tries to rehearse with her dancers in spite of the unbearable noise coming from a neighboring construction site held by a corrupt man. Ammar is seeking treatment at the public hospital, both mistreated and sent away from one office to the other.
The Arab Summit is a success… while the characters fight for survival.
The four stories of Fataria make us face an absurd life. They take place on the day of the Arab Summit in Tunis.
The film takes place in one day. Events in crescendo plunge the characters in a Kafkaean atmosphere. They are abandoned, left to their own devices, to their own defeat. But they would still fight and survive.
My stories are immersed in a burlesque atmosphere and situations sometimes verge on surrealism, in the same vein as the Arab world, which is usually absurd. Dictatorship, bureaucracy, corruption have themselves led to a burlesque general atmosphere. The writing of Fataria, its style and tone, are determined by my Tunisian characters’ real lives. The burlesque style of the film matches the absurdity and the surrealism of the situations they live in.
The film belongs to the genre of comedy, because I like telling the most tragic stories in a humorous tone. It is through derision, I think, that our chaotic destinies can be better understood, maybe also better overcome… maybe. «It is better to laugh than cry about it» goes the old saying.
Through Fataria, I would like first and foremost to unravel the reasons which led Tunisians to their revolution.
I’ve been accompanying Walid Tayaa with this project for several years. I’ve been immediately seduced by the originality of this project: a choral movie, a burlesque and caustic comedy taking place in the last years of Ben Ali in Tunisia. Several rewritings of the script and many fundraising approaches have allowed us to obtain the Aide au Cinéma du Monde in France and support by Tunisian Ministry of Culture. In 2017 we met with Habib Attia (Cinétéléfilms) and decided to start together the shooting of the film in October 2017, while adapting to the already obtained financing, by common agreement with the director. Today the film is in post-production.
The submitted cut we’re glad to present you is the final cut (editing picture). The color grading that we intend to do this Fall with the director of photography will intensify the very colored tonality of this comedy. Sound has a subtle role in the film and the director wishes to integrate original music with a basis of percussions.
These last steps of post-production are essential. We do hope for your support to highlight the true qualities of the film and to be able to finalize it by January 2019.
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2017: Beauty and the Dogs by Kaouther Ben Hania
2016: Zaineb Hates the Snow by Kaouther Ben Hania
2015: Borders of Heaven by Fares Naanaa
2014: Challat of Tunis by Kaouther Ben Hania
2013: Palestine Stereo by Rashid Masharawi
2012: It Was Better Tomorrow by Hinde Boujemaa
2011: No More Fear by Mourad Ben Cheikh