Feature Narrative
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Noura meets the love of her life Lassaad while her husband Sofiane is in jail. Upon his release, the two lovers decide to flee.
Noura meets the love of her life, Lassad, while her husband, Sofiane, is in jail. She raises her three children alone, and works in a laundry room. A few days before the divorce Noura has asked for is granted, the lovers’ project of living together is jeopardised by Sofiane›s release. This is when Noura and Lassad decide to flee.
I see women, veiled or not, walking in the popular districts of Tunis, with a personal «lid» over their heads; a concrete topping, a bit like the famous wet cloud that often follows characters in cartoons. The lid isn’t made of cement or any other material, but of looks, judgements, intolerance, religion. I see a woman in a pink velvet tracksuit, crossing the street in a hurry, and in her eyes there is a glimmer that gets to me. It›s Noura. Instinctively, I decide to follow her.
In the Arab world, we sing for love. From Om Kalthoum to Berber songs, men and women sing for love: pain, jealousy, emotions, romance. But when it comes to carnal lust, to its reality, especially out of wedlock, taboos and double standards settle in. Love becomes a «sin.» Yet everyone has felt love and lust, and it is through these universal feelings that the viewer will enter Noura›s story.
Imed Marzouk was born in 1973. After studying international commerce at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Commerciales (HEC), he obtained a degree in Marketing. In 2000, he joined Canal + Horizons Tunisie where he worked as production manager, and in 2002, he founded the production company Propaganda with Nejib Belkadhi. Marzouk has produced several shorts, including Tsawer by Nejib Belkadhi (2005), Walid Mattar’s Tendid (2010) and Offrande (2012), Linge Sale (2010) by Malik Amara, and And Romeo Married Juliette by Hinde Boujemaa (2014), as well as several documentaries, including Belkadhi’s VHS Kahloucha (2006), which was selected at the Cannes Film Festival and the Sundance Film Festival and won the Gold Muhr at the Dubai International Film Festival, and feature films, such as Bastardo by Belkadhi (2013), which screened at the Toronto International Film Festival and won Best Film at the Africano Film Festival in Milano and Best film at the Latin Arab Film Festival in Buenos Aires, and Leyla Bouzid’s As I Open My Eyes (2015), which won the Gold Muhr at DIFF, Best Film at London’s East End Film Festival, and Best First Feature Film at Festival du Film Francophone in Namur.
Propaganda Production is a Tunisian broadcasting company founded in 2002 by Imed Marzouk and Néjib Belkadhi.