Halfaouine: Child of the Terraces

Asfour Stah

Tunisia, France, Italy

1990

98 Min

Color

1.37:1

Arabic

Currently 3.6/5 Stars.
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PROD Ahmed Baha Attia, Sylvain Bursztejn, Hassen Daldoul, Eliane Stutterheim

SCR Férid Boughedir, Nouri Bouzid, Taoufik Jebali, Maryse León García

CAST Selim Boughedir, Mustapha Adouani, Rabia Ben Abdallah, Mohammed Driss, Hélène Catzaras, Fatima Ben Saïdane, Abdelhamid Gayess, Jamel Sassi, Radhouane Meddeb, Carolyn Chelby, Zahira Ben Ammar, Fethi Haddaoui

ED Marie-Christine Rougerie, Moufida Tlatli

What can one do to explore the shape and form of a women’s physique when one lives in a society where women are fully covered and veiled up to the eyes? It is this question that bedevils little Noura and compels him to challenge his older friends.

At the same time, he dreams of fearful ogres and a kidnapped princess who is omnipresent in his mother’s tales. He finds in Salih, the shoemaker of the district – an wilful listener and experienced advisor on the affairs of the opposite sex – Salih is also a singer and a faithful disciple of the divine whisky bottle – a libertine and humoristic poet and of course a great seducer of women. The real pillar of this friendship is forged in stone when Noura also learns that Salih only makes shoes for women. —African Film Library

Director

Férid Boughedir

For a long time one of Africa and the Arab World’s best known critics and author of numerous books, Ferid Boughedir began by making two documentaries about the new cinema coming out of these regions: Caméra d’Afrique and Caméra Arabe, both of which were presented in the Official Selection at Cannes. His first fictional work, Halfaouine (Boy of the Terraces), was shown in Cannes in 1990 to acclaim from critics and audiences alike and remains to this day the biggest success in Tunisian film. A Summer in La Goulette, in competition in Berlin (1996), also won many prizes. A passionate lover of film, he became Delegate, then Director, of the oldest Pan-African festival, the Carthage Film Festival. He finished Villa Jasmin in 2008, co-produced by France 3 and Arte, and currently has a feature in preparation: The Angel.—festival-cannes.fr