Amman, May 4 — The Abdul Hameed Shoman Foundation launches tomorrow, Tuesday, the Tunisian Film Week, showcasing films by acclaimed Tunisian director Habib Mestiri. The week-long event continues until next Wednesday at the Foundation’s headquarters in Jabal Amman, with screenings held daily at 6:30 PM.
The program also includes a discussion session with director Mestiri next Thursday at 6:30 PM, titled “My Experience in Cinema: From Documentary to Fiction.”
The screenings begin with the film “Wed”, which revolves around the political transformations witnessed by Tunisian society during the 1980s, portrayed through the eyes of politically active university students, full of dreams and disappointments— especially amid the ongoing political and social changes shaping the modern world.
Winner of the Grand Prize for Feature Films at the Fes Festival of World Sacred Music – The Festival in the City, the film follows a protagonist marked by loss and isolation. Living apart from his parents, he finds refuge with a neighboring family, then faces alienation during his university years due to ideological conflicts. These struggles culminate in his collapse under a reality shaped by corruption, fear, siege, and authoritarianism.
Director Mestiri adapted the film from Mustafa Ben Ahmed’s novel The Last Dreamer in a Dying City, using a distinctive audiovisual style that departs from conventional drama. Despite its harsh subject matter, the film unfolds through striking, carefully staged scenes, marked by expressive set designs, drawings, and doll-like figures that appear uncannily alive, as if silently observing those within the space.
Mestiri paid close attention to gradations of light and shadow, as well as to carefully selected music and songs that mirror the character’s inner emotions—loss and longing at times, suspicion and danger at others. This is exemplified in songs by composer Mohamed Abdel Wahab, particularly “Hān al‑Wed ‘Alayh”, from which the film’s title is derived.
Many scenes take place in confined, narrow spaces filled with artistic elements such as sculptures, statues, and curtains, accompanied by sparse dialogue and the use of archival news footage from the period during which the events unfold. In all of this, Mestiri excelled in presenting a refined creative sensibility within a solid dramatic narrative.
The story follows a university student whose political activism leads to imprisonment. After his release, he commits himself to journalism to continue defending the causes and concerns of ordinary, marginalized people. He investigates corruption within a contracting company responsible for the collapse of a building that caused deaths and injuries among residents. However, his pursuit of the truth brings him into conflict with powerful, entrenched corrupt forces attempting to prevent him from completing his investigation. This leads to his impoverishment and forces him to live under harsh, inhumane conditions, effectively erasing his role and aspirations within society.
What distinguishes “Wed” is not only the diversity of its subject matter or the boldness with which it addresses sensitive issues filled with open wounds, but also its intelligent transitions between scenes steeped in anxiety, nightmares of surveillance, psychological illness, fear, violence, loneliness, and loss. All of this is portrayed with high professionalism, emotional depth, and poetic intensity, capturing a turbulent political period in Tunisian history. The film becomes a contemplative journey that masterfully explores oppression and the inevitability of liberation from the constraints that shackle human life. Ultimately, “Wed” emerges as a unique audiovisual work, rich with symbolic imagery and clear implications concerning questions of freedom.
On Wednesday, the film “Shattered Waves” will be screened. It is Habib Mestiri’s first feature-length fiction film after a series of documentary works.
In “Shattered Waves – Weld Al Akri” (a popular expression referring to a “traitor in Arabic”), numerous questions and critiques are raised—an interrogation of history and a call to re-examine it. The film radiates love and humanity, transporting audiences to a sensitive period in Tunisia’s history. Mestiri’s camera takes us to the years before and after independence, roughly between 1955 and 1961—from the return of Habib Bourguiba in July 1955 to the speech calling for the Battle of Bizerte.
The film’s protagonist, Hassoun, is a Tunisian soldier serving in the French army. Despite his position, he is deeply loyal to Tunisia and committed to its independence. He exploits his job to gather intelligence on French movements and passes secret information to his friend Reda, a lawyer, who then delivers it to the political bureau of the Neo Destour Party.
The film unfolds primarily in two locations: a café in Halq El‑Wadi (La Goulette) and the office of a French officer. In the café, the waiter acts as the link between the Tunisian officer collaborating with the nationalist movement and the lawyer.
Through “Shattered Waves”, Mestiri sheds light on highly significant figures in Tunisian history and raises questions about their fate and how their compatriots treated them. The term “Weld Al Akri” becomes an accusation: How can you claim to be Tunisian when you are “Weld Al Akri”?—a distorted traitor because you served under the French flag. This emerges in a debate between Hassoun and one of his friends when Hassoun expresses his desire to join the Tunisian army, as he had previously been promised.
The film invites us to question who is more sincere: the officer who served in the French army yet was most committed to Tunisian security and to supplying information to nationalists and resistance fighters? Or those who merely chanted in the streets for a day or two—some of whom colluded with France against the resistance—only to later be rewarded with posts in the new state?
The camera moves fluidly between places, portraying stages of Hassoun’s life. He is offered French citizenship, an officer’s rank, a home, and a pension—rare privileges—on the condition that he remain in the French army. Alternatively, he can leave without any benefits. Hassoun chooses his Tunisian identity and homeland, believing he has a place in the Tunisian army. Instead, he is repaid with an attempted assassination and later a rejection of his enlistment on the pretext of a rumor: “They say you’re a communist.”
The character is complex, and the events even more so. Hassoun endures profound injustice, representing many soldiers abandoned by both France and their homeland simply because they were labeled “Weld Al Akri.” Instead of benefiting from their experience, the state marginalizes them. Rather than bearing arms or training the newly formed army, Hassoun ends up fishing to survive.
The camera continues to follow Hassoun as he answers Bourguiba’s call and volunteers for the Battle of Evacuation in Bizerte. He forgets how his country disowned him and responds to its call—only to die in battle. And because he is “Weld Al Akri,” even his grave is isolated, placed at the edge of the sea, vulnerable to being washed away by the tide.
Adnan Madanat, cinema consultant at the Shoman Foundation and a film director and critic, stated that the Cinema Department regularly organizes film weeks throughout the year, each focusing on a specific cinematic genre or productions from a particular country. They are called “film weeks” because screenings extend over three consecutive days.
He added that the Cinema Committee at the Shoman Foundation continually seeks to highlight Arab filmmakers, especially those who have presented creative and innovative works.
Tunisian director Habib Mestiri was born in the city of Chebba on July 6, 1959. He began his cinematic journey early by joining the Amateur Filmmakers’ Club in Chebba in 1977, where he directed his first short film, “The Fisherman’s Return.”
He started his career as a cultural journalist and later worked as an assistant director on several Tunisian and international film projects. In 1994, he moved to Italy, where he worked as a director and producer for the Orbit television network, achieving notable success crowned by several international awards.
In 2008, Mestiri returned to Tunisian cinema and presented numerous acclaimed documentary and fiction works, many of which engage with memory, place, and human identity.