Films in production or post-production
Guest project
Marie & Jolie
Synopsis
Forty-year-old Marie, an Ivory Coast national, has been living in Tunisia for 10 years. She divides her time between her employment as a journalist and her vocation as an evangelical pastor. Modern and committed, she takes in women who find themselves in fragile situations – women like Nané, a young mother whose passport has been confiscated by her employer, and Jolie, a promising artist whose father is demanding she return to Ivory Coast. Together, the three form an unexpected trio, one characterized by resourcefulness, inventiveness, and humor. Recent tensions between sub-Saharian Africans, Tunisians, and the police, however, challenge the women’s personal lives, forcing them to make choices.
Frida Marzouk
Nadia Ben Rachid
Laëtitia Ky, Sophie Tankou, Nané Déborah
Henia Production (Tunisia)
Erige Sehiri
heniaproduction@gmail.com
Director’s statement
As in my previous film, what interests me above all is sharing and bringing to life stories and destinies that I have encountered; telling the inside story of an environment by revealing the underside of a profession or a vocation rooted in a fragile socio-political context; unveiling a particular universe with authentic characters; adding soul to statistics; blending conversations and silences I have heard with those I have imagined. Imbued by my own faith in humanity’s penchant for creation, even in difficult times, I want to convey the energy that inhabits human beings and the dynamic that is created by beliefs, whatever they may be, through working with both professional actors and an amateur cast. Through our exchanges, I seek to create a film that lies on the shifting boundary between reality and fiction. It is in this delicate space, collective and intimate, that I locate cinema.
Biographies
Erige Sehiri is a French-Tunisian director and producer. With her own production company, Henia Production, she develops Tunisian auteur-driven documentaries that have been honoured with selections at festivals including Visions du Réel, the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam, and Cinemed, among others. In 2018, Sehiri’s breakout feature-length documentary, Railway Men, played for six weeks in Tunisian theatres. She wrote, directed, and produced her first fiction feature, Under the Fig Trees (2022), which was presented in the Directors’ Fortnight at the Festival de Cannes 2022 and was chosen to represent Tunisia at the 2023 Academy Awards.
Didar Domehri founded Maneki Films in 2009 and has produced or co-produced 21 feature films, most notably: Karim Aïnouz’s Motel Destino (upcoming); Alex Lutz’s Strangers by Night; Hlynur Pálmason’s Godland; Erige Sehiri’s Under the Fig Trees; David Moreau’s King; Étienne Comar’s Singing Jailbirds; Santiago Mitre’s 15 Ways to Kill Your Neighbour, The Summit, and Paulina; João Paulo Miranda Maria’s Memory House; Claus Drexel’s Under the Stars of Paris; Eva Husson’s Girls of the Sun and Bang Gang (A Modern Love Story); Peter Webber’s Pickpockets; Arab and Tarzan Nasser’s Dégradé; Laurent Cantet’s Return to Ithaca; Jean-Baptiste Andréa’s Brotherhood of Tears; Pablo Trapero’s White Elephant; the omnibus film 7 Days in Havana; and Wang Xiaoshuai’s 11 Flowers.
€683 803
€208 803
Europe Creative Media, Cofinova
October 2023, January—February 2024, Tunisia
September 2024
