Sometimes the most important stories are the hardest to tell, the secrets one most wants to share too painful to speak. Olfa had four daughters. This much we know from the title, but only two are with her now. What happened to the others? As the film opens, director Kaouther Ben Hania introduces actors who will help her to explain. Actors to play the two missing daughters, an actor to play the various men who have connected with the family, and an actor to play Olfa herself at times when it all becomes too much.
Working with these actors, with Olfa and with daughters Eya and Tayssir, Ben Hania unravels the complex story through a mixture of interviews and reenactments, some of which are discussed in front of the camera before they are performed. The exposure of the film’s underlying structures...
Working with these actors, with Olfa and with daughters Eya and Tayssir, Ben Hania unravels the complex story through a mixture of interviews and reenactments, some of which are discussed in front of the camera before they are performed. The exposure of the film’s underlying structures...
- 1/28/2024
- by Jennie Kermode
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Updated with reaction from documentary nominees. In an Oscar stunner, two films considered a lock for nominations failed to be recognized Tuesday morning in the Best Documentary Feature category: American Symphony and Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie.
Instead, a group of five internationally focused documentaries earned nominations: National Geographic’s Bobi Wine: The People’s President, The Eternal Memory, Four Daughters, To Kill a Tiger, and 20 Days in Mariupol.
Kaouther Ben Hania, the Tunisian director of Four Daughters told Deadline this morning, “We live in a world where everything is linked so people are interested what happened in Tunisia and Uganda [where Bobi Wine takes place]. It’s just amazing. It proves that we live in a world where people are more curious, more international, more open.”
Related: Cillian Murphy On Best Actor ‘Oppenheimer’ Oscar Nomination: “I Feel Really Privileged And Lucky To Be In A Film That’s Connected With People”
Documentary branch voters,...
Instead, a group of five internationally focused documentaries earned nominations: National Geographic’s Bobi Wine: The People’s President, The Eternal Memory, Four Daughters, To Kill a Tiger, and 20 Days in Mariupol.
Kaouther Ben Hania, the Tunisian director of Four Daughters told Deadline this morning, “We live in a world where everything is linked so people are interested what happened in Tunisia and Uganda [where Bobi Wine takes place]. It’s just amazing. It proves that we live in a world where people are more curious, more international, more open.”
Related: Cillian Murphy On Best Actor ‘Oppenheimer’ Oscar Nomination: “I Feel Really Privileged And Lucky To Be In A Film That’s Connected With People”
Documentary branch voters,...
- 1/23/2024
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania crafts a unique docudrama look at a family torn apart when two daughters leave to join the Islamic State
Four Daughters, a surreal blend of documentary, memory, meta-fictional re-enactment and therapy now shortlisted for an Oscar, originated years ago: in 2016, when a Tunisian woman named Olfa Hamrouni took to local news to call out her country’s failure to combat the scourge of Isis. And the year before that, when her two radicalized eldest daughters, Ghofrane and Rahma Chikhaoui, fled to join the group in Libya. And the years before that, when Hamrouni struggled to raise her four daughters – the two eldest, rebellious and fiery; the two youngest, keen sponges of conflict – with an iron fist and a housekeeper’s salary.
Hamrouni first caught the eye of Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania on the news, pleading with authorities to repatriate her daughters from a Libyan...
Four Daughters, a surreal blend of documentary, memory, meta-fictional re-enactment and therapy now shortlisted for an Oscar, originated years ago: in 2016, when a Tunisian woman named Olfa Hamrouni took to local news to call out her country’s failure to combat the scourge of Isis. And the year before that, when her two radicalized eldest daughters, Ghofrane and Rahma Chikhaoui, fled to join the group in Libya. And the years before that, when Hamrouni struggled to raise her four daughters – the two eldest, rebellious and fiery; the two youngest, keen sponges of conflict – with an iron fist and a housekeeper’s salary.
Hamrouni first caught the eye of Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania on the news, pleading with authorities to repatriate her daughters from a Libyan...
- 1/10/2024
- by Adrian Horton
- The Guardian - Film News
As the voting window for the Oscar shortlists approaches, Academy members are considering Kaouther Ben Hania’s film Four Daughters in not one, but two categories: Best Documentary Film and Best International Feature.
In August, Tunisia selected Ben Hania’s documentary as its official entry for International Film, the third time the director has been chosen for that honor, following 2017’s Beauty and the Dogs and 2020’s The Man Who Sold His Skin, which went on to earn an Oscar nomination. Both of those earlier films were narrative dramas, and there are dramatic elements in Four Daughters: Ben Hania enlisted three actresses to participate in her documentary.
Olfa Hamrouni, protagonist of ‘Four Daughters,’ at the Cannes Film Festival.
Four Daughters tells the story of Olfa, a working-class Tunisian woman who raised four girls: Ghofrane, Rahma, Eya, and Tayssir. After the Arab Spring led to the ouster of Tunisia’s...
In August, Tunisia selected Ben Hania’s documentary as its official entry for International Film, the third time the director has been chosen for that honor, following 2017’s Beauty and the Dogs and 2020’s The Man Who Sold His Skin, which went on to earn an Oscar nomination. Both of those earlier films were narrative dramas, and there are dramatic elements in Four Daughters: Ben Hania enlisted three actresses to participate in her documentary.
Olfa Hamrouni, protagonist of ‘Four Daughters,’ at the Cannes Film Festival.
Four Daughters tells the story of Olfa, a working-class Tunisian woman who raised four girls: Ghofrane, Rahma, Eya, and Tayssir. After the Arab Spring led to the ouster of Tunisia’s...
- 11/27/2023
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
Co-winner of the Cannes 2023 Golden Eye, Kaouther Ben Hania’s 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 […]
The post “A Journey That Allowed Us to Harness the Power of Storytelling”: Kaouther Ben Hania on her Cannes-winning Four Daughters first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “A Journey That Allowed Us to Harness the Power of Storytelling”: Kaouther Ben Hania on her Cannes-winning Four Daughters first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 10/27/2023
- by Lauren Wissot
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Co-winner of the Cannes 2023 Golden Eye, Kaouther Ben Hania’s 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 […]
The post “A Journey That Allowed Us to Harness the Power of Storytelling”: Kaouther Ben Hania on her Cannes-winning Four Daughters first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “A Journey That Allowed Us to Harness the Power of Storytelling”: Kaouther Ben Hania on her Cannes-winning Four Daughters first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 10/27/2023
- by Lauren Wissot
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
For filmmakers, few honors can compare to premiering a movie in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. And for fans of international cinema around the world, seeing a Cannes hit opening in theaters after a long wait can be one of the most exciting moviegoing events of the year. This weekend promises to bring such a treat to New York moviegoers, as Kaouther Ben Hania’s Tunisian metafictional documentary “Four Daughters” makes its way to select theaters.
The film tells the story of Olfa Hamrouni, a Tunisian woman who lost contact with two of her daughters when they left to join Isis. Hania documents the story of the family’s dissolution by casting two professional actors to play the estranged daughters. The narrative device invokes classic metafictional documentaries such as Abbas Kiarostami’s “Close-Up” by simultaneously telling a story and prompting viewers to question the reliability of the film in front of them.
The film tells the story of Olfa Hamrouni, a Tunisian woman who lost contact with two of her daughters when they left to join Isis. Hania documents the story of the family’s dissolution by casting two professional actors to play the estranged daughters. The narrative device invokes classic metafictional documentaries such as Abbas Kiarostami’s “Close-Up” by simultaneously telling a story and prompting viewers to question the reliability of the film in front of them.
- 10/24/2023
- by Christian Zilko
- Indiewire
Absence is at the heart of Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania’s cleverly constructed and sneakily powerful fiction-documentary hybrid Four Daughters. In the opening images, we see a woman, Olfa, and her two daughters, Eya and Tayssir. Before we can even wonder where the other two daughters implied in the title might be, Hania informs us via voice over that the two eldest, Rahma and Ghofrane, were “devoured by the wolf.”
The meaning of that phrase isn’t revealed until the third act of Ben Hania’s film. But before we get there, Hania tells the story of how and why those two daughters were compelled to abruptly leave home—fracturing a family that, now eight years later, is still recovering—by employing two actors, Nour Karoui and Ichrak Matar, to play Rahma and Ghofrane, respectively, and another, Majd Mastoura, to play various male figures. And in certain scenes that are especially harrowing,...
The meaning of that phrase isn’t revealed until the third act of Ben Hania’s film. But before we get there, Hania tells the story of how and why those two daughters were compelled to abruptly leave home—fracturing a family that, now eight years later, is still recovering—by employing two actors, Nour Karoui and Ichrak Matar, to play Rahma and Ghofrane, respectively, and another, Majd Mastoura, to play various male figures. And in certain scenes that are especially harrowing,...
- 10/23/2023
- by Derek Smith
- Slant Magazine
It’s easy to get trapped in circuitous arguments surrounding documentary ethics at the best of times, but Kaouther Ben Hania’s metafictional “Four Daughters” — involving young children, abuse, trauma and re-enactments — appears to chart these knotty waters as a barefaced challenge. This Tunisian entry into Cannes’ Official Competition is a bold behemoth of an undertaking, which is veiled, unveiled and then re-veiled with endless angles and perspectives; it’s a veritable snakepit of uneasy decisions that grips you with its novel approach to so-called truth-telling before lapsing into something a little more conventional. Far from a gamble made in the service of naturalism, this heightened and strange piece of fiction re-enactment exposes itself for critique in a way that you almost have to respect. For its sins, it seems to —just about— succeed.
“Four Daughters” orbits the trauma of a Tunisian woman named Olfa and her youngest daughters, Tayssir and Eya.
“Four Daughters” orbits the trauma of a Tunisian woman named Olfa and her youngest daughters, Tayssir and Eya.
- 5/21/2023
- by Steph Green
- Indiewire
Actors and real people re-enact the past to understand why two daughters left Tunisia to fight for Is in Syria, leaving the rest of the family behind
There is real emotional warmth and human sympathy in this otherwise somewhat flawed film, a docudrama experiment in getting actors to play some of the real people in a tragic news story from Tunisia. Olfa Hamrouni, a divorced woman from the coastal town of Sousse, made the headlines seven years ago when two of her four daughters, Rahma and Ghofrane, broke her and their sisters’ hearts by vanishing from the country to become fighters and wives for Islamic State in Syria. Now director Kaouther Ben Hania re-enacts key parts of Olfa’s family life, featuring the remaining sisters Eya and Tayssir playing themselves, but performers playing the vanished fugitives: Ichraq Matar is Ghofrane and Nour Karoui is Rahma.
Despite the fact that she hasn’t vanished,...
There is real emotional warmth and human sympathy in this otherwise somewhat flawed film, a docudrama experiment in getting actors to play some of the real people in a tragic news story from Tunisia. Olfa Hamrouni, a divorced woman from the coastal town of Sousse, made the headlines seven years ago when two of her four daughters, Rahma and Ghofrane, broke her and their sisters’ hearts by vanishing from the country to become fighters and wives for Islamic State in Syria. Now director Kaouther Ben Hania re-enacts key parts of Olfa’s family life, featuring the remaining sisters Eya and Tayssir playing themselves, but performers playing the vanished fugitives: Ichraq Matar is Ghofrane and Nour Karoui is Rahma.
Despite the fact that she hasn’t vanished,...
- 5/20/2023
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
It is rare to get a glimpse into the inner lives of those who join the harsh, nihilistic world of Isis. It’s even more rare – almost impossible – to understand the women who have given up their freedom and disappeared under the shroud of niqab.
It is a life of poverty and the strictest Islamic discipline. A life of marginalization from the world and one where violence is a constant theme. And a life utterly cut off from family.
It is through this latter keyhole that “Four Daughters” (“Les Filles d’Olfa”) director Kaouther Ben Hania peers into in an unusual verite docu-drama about the shattering of a family when two daughters join radical Islam.
Tunisian mother Olfa has four daughters, all beautiful. We meet two of them, Eya and Tayssir, now in their 20s, dressed in jeans and t-shirts, who are joined by two actresses who play their missing older sisters,...
It is a life of poverty and the strictest Islamic discipline. A life of marginalization from the world and one where violence is a constant theme. And a life utterly cut off from family.
It is through this latter keyhole that “Four Daughters” (“Les Filles d’Olfa”) director Kaouther Ben Hania peers into in an unusual verite docu-drama about the shattering of a family when two daughters join radical Islam.
Tunisian mother Olfa has four daughters, all beautiful. We meet two of them, Eya and Tayssir, now in their 20s, dressed in jeans and t-shirts, who are joined by two actresses who play their missing older sisters,...
- 5/20/2023
- by Sharon Waxman
- The Wrap
Using actors to bring to life story elements within documentary film is becoming a more widespread practice, if one that’s still viewed with skepticism by some purists.
The films of Robert Greene spring to mind – Kate Plays Christine and Procession, for instance – and Kitty Green’s Casting JonBenet. Errol Morris cast Peter Sarsgaard, Tim Blake Nelson, Bob Balaban and other stars to dramatize extended sequences in Wormwood, and famously used actors in the critical murder scene reenactment in the The Thin Blue Line.
The technique achieves a new level of artistry and organic relevance in Kaouther Ben Hania’s documentary Four Daughters (Les Filles d’Olfa), which premiered tonight in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. The Tunisian director cast actresses to play Olfa Hamrouni and her two eldest daughters, Rahma and Ghofrane, who as teenagers abruptly disappeared from the family home after becoming attached to radical Islamist ideology. Only...
The films of Robert Greene spring to mind – Kate Plays Christine and Procession, for instance – and Kitty Green’s Casting JonBenet. Errol Morris cast Peter Sarsgaard, Tim Blake Nelson, Bob Balaban and other stars to dramatize extended sequences in Wormwood, and famously used actors in the critical murder scene reenactment in the The Thin Blue Line.
The technique achieves a new level of artistry and organic relevance in Kaouther Ben Hania’s documentary Four Daughters (Les Filles d’Olfa), which premiered tonight in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. The Tunisian director cast actresses to play Olfa Hamrouni and her two eldest daughters, Rahma and Ghofrane, who as teenagers abruptly disappeared from the family home after becoming attached to radical Islamist ideology. Only...
- 5/19/2023
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
Kaouther Ben Hania’s heartbreaking Four Daughters (Les filles d’Olfa) pulls you in with a question: Who is Olfa Hamrouni?
She rose to international fame in 2016 when she criticized the Tunisian government for not preventing her daughters from joining the Islamic State in Libya. In interviews from those years, Hamrouni is a bereaved mother. Her voice aches with pain as she recounts the loss of her two eldest daughters, and it shakes with anger when she speaks of the government’s listless response.
The Olfa of Ben Hania’s docu-fiction strikes a more relaxed pose. She has traded her pink hijabs for a black scarf, tightly woven around her head. She’s freer with her laughs and more pointed with her asides. Grief still undergirds her anecdotes, but so does a palpable willingness to share. She eagerly explains how she believes a movie about her life will help spread an...
She rose to international fame in 2016 when she criticized the Tunisian government for not preventing her daughters from joining the Islamic State in Libya. In interviews from those years, Hamrouni is a bereaved mother. Her voice aches with pain as she recounts the loss of her two eldest daughters, and it shakes with anger when she speaks of the government’s listless response.
The Olfa of Ben Hania’s docu-fiction strikes a more relaxed pose. She has traded her pink hijabs for a black scarf, tightly woven around her head. She’s freer with her laughs and more pointed with her asides. Grief still undergirds her anecdotes, but so does a palpable willingness to share. She eagerly explains how she believes a movie about her life will help spread an...
- 5/19/2023
- by Lovia Gyarkye
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Late on in Kaouther Ben Hania’s compelling, ambitious hybrid “Four Daughters,” Olfa Hamrouni — the film’s focus, its fixation and its most charismatically contradictory character — strokes a purring, heavily pregnant ginger cat. Sometimes, she tells us, a cat will be so scared for her babies that she eats them. It’s Olfa’s covert acknowledgement that her own misguided protective urge, forged by her hard history with men and mother alike, might have contributed to her life’s great, rupturing tragedy: when, in 2015, the elder two of her four girls ran away to join Isis. But it also recalls one of her earlier to-camera segments, when she described her daughters, as though shielding herself from the pain of the real with the language of fable, as having been “devoured by the wolf.” So which is it: Were Ghofran and Rahma, 16 and 15 at the time of their disappearance, eaten up...
- 5/19/2023
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
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