Tunis–Djerba

Amel Guellaty

Tunisia - France - Qatar

Synopsis

Alyssa, a rebellious nineteen-year-old, and her best friend, Mehdi, a shy and introverted twenty-three-year-old, use their imagination to escape their sad reality. One day, they discover a contest in Djerba that could change their lives. They decide to go on the road trip, regardless of the obstacles.

Fiction

1^st feature

Production

Atlas Vision (Tunisia)
Asma Chiboub

Co-production

Haut Les Mains productions (France)
Karim Aitouna
karim@hautlesmainsproductions.fr

Director’s statement

Tunis–Djerba portrays Alyssa and Mehdi, nineteen and twenty-three years old respectively, best friends who are penniless and suffocated by a heavy family and professional life. They are part of a generation who grew up with hope, and who believed in a better future but who find themselves in the same misery as their parents. They have the impression that the Revolution has not changed anything; there is even a certain nostalgia for a dictatorship that they did not really know. My film was born of the desire—the need—to give the youth of my country a voice. The situation of unemployed graduates around me inspired me to create the character of Mehdi. My friend Ahmed, twenty-eight years old with a Master's degree in Computer Science, works in a dry cleaner's shop. Sami, at twenty-four, has a degree in Business Administration and works as a driver. They all want to leave the country.

Biographies

Amel Guellaty

Director

Amel Guellaty is a Tunisian director and photographer. She has worked as an assistant director or casting director on feature films by Olivier Assayas and Abdellatif Kechiche, among others. In 2017, she directed her first short fiction film, Black Mamba, which was selected for more than sixty festivals and won about twenty awards worldwide. The film was bought by Canal+. Guellaty recently completed her second short film, Chitana. She has also directed a video for Dior Middle East and commissioned documentaries. Her photographs have been published in various magazines, among them Elle France, and have appeared in several group exhibitions.

Asma Chiboub

Producer

Based in Tunis, Asma Chiboub has produced short films such as the multi-award-winning Black Mamba and, more recently, Chitana by Amel Guellaty. She is currently developing Guellaty’s Tunis–Djerba and Firas Khoury’s Dear Tarkovsky. Chiboub has worked as a consultant reader for MedFilm Factory and as a member of the organising committee for several editions of the Carthage Film Festival. She has participated in the Socrates Script Editing, DOCmed documentary production and MedFilm Factory fiction production training programmes, and is a member of the EAVE network.