La saison des hommes
France / Tunisia,
2000, 124 min
Shown in 2001
CREDITS
- dir
-
Moufida Tlatli
- prod
-
Margaret Menegoz, Mohamed Tlatli
- scr
-
Moufida Tlatli
- cam
-
Youssef Ben Youssef
- editor
-
Isabelle Devinck
- mus
-
Anouar Brahem
- cast
-
Rabiaa Ben Abdallah, Sabah Bouzouita, Ghalia Ben Ali, Hend Sabri, Ezzedine Guennoun
- source
-
Les Films du Losange, 22, Avenue Pierre 1er du Serbie, 75016 Paris, France. FAX: 33-1-49-52-06-40
OTHER
Tunisian filmmaker Moufida Tlatli is known for her elegant and moving Silences of the Palace, for which she was presented the Satyajit Ray Award at the 1995 SFIFF. In The Season of Men, Tlatli continues to penetrate the experience of women, exposing the calcifying pain of confinement and silence on three generations. For 11 months of the year, the women on the Tunisian island of Djerba live without men under the law of their mothers-in-law while their husbands work on the mainland in Tunis. Aicha chafes under these conditions and longs to live in Tunis with her husband Said. To raise the necessary funds, she weaves exquisite, unconventional rugs, but each year Said demurs, insisting she first bear him a son. The Season of Men swirls between the past and present, nimbly lacing together Aicha’s memories while creating a splendid cinematic tapestry using the colors of the Djerba landscape, the sensuous fabrics of the women’s scarves and the intricate designs of the rugs. Slowly, the patterns of daily life emerge—the loneliness and the laughter—and through Aicha’s children the legacy of frustration and oppression is brought into sharp relief.
—Kathy Geritz
FACTOID #361
John Huston, director of classics The Maltese Falcon and The Misfits, was honored with a Festival tribute in 1968. His daughter Anjelica received the Peter J. Owens Award in 1991; The Dead, one of the father-daughter duo’s collaborations, screened at her onstage interview.
