“A Journey That Allowed Us to Harness the Power of Storytelling”: Kaouther Ben Hania on her Cannes-winning Four Daughters

Co-winner of the Cannes 2023 Golden Eye, Kaouther Ben Hania’s (Zaineb Hates the Snow, Beauty and the Dogs) Four Daughters is both compellingly crafted and deeply disturbing. The “fictional documentary” looks back on an infamous, winding and tumultuous Tunisian saga involving five women: the titular quartet of older siblings Ghofrane and Rahma and youngest Eya and Tayssir, along with their mother Olfa Hamrouni. The younger daughters appear as themselves, and the film features two actors taking on the roles of the oldest, a necessity since Ghofrane and Rahma can’t “play” themselves, having “disappeared” back in 2015 at the tender ages of 16 and 15, respectively. Then there is veteran Tunisian-Egyptian actor Hend Sabri (Noura’s Dream), who plays Olfa when events get too traumatic to recount, a circumstance that happens often when such strong-willed real-life protagonists — especially the domineering Olfa — are as messy and complicated as the stories they tell to us, as well as themselves. Soon after the film’s TIFF premiere (and just prior to its debut at the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, where I saw it as part of my Critics Jury duty), Filmmaker reached out to the Tunisian writer-director to learn all about this most unexpected followup to her Oscar-nominated, Monica Bellucci-starring The Man Who Sold His Skin. Four Daughters is released today by Kino Lorber.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.