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.
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.
124 min / Black & white, 35 mm
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
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.
First-hand brews throughout the year.
Be among the first to learn about upcoming events and other news. We only send the newsletter when we have something to say.
