Mohamed Ben Attia
Directing
Biography
Mohamed Ben Attia (born January 5, 1976; Tunis) is a Tunisian director and screenwriter. After various jobs in audiovisual post-production, he was finally hired for twelve years in a commercial position and prospecting at a car dealership in Tunis. Trained at the writing workshop Sud Écriture in Tunis, he began writing and directing several short fiction films, starting with Romantisme : deux comprimés matin et soir in 2005. His second short film : Comme les autres (Kif Lokhrim) was produced in 2006. After Mouja, unveiled at the Carthage Film Festival 2010 and selected at CinemAfrica 2011 in Stockholm, he directed Loi 76 (2011), his fourth short film, then Selma (2013). He moved to feature film in 2016 with Hedi, a wind of freedom produced by Dora Bouchoucha (Nomadis Images) and co-produced by the Dardenne brothers (Les Films du Fleuve), convinced by his latest short film and script. In 2018, he participated in the Cannes Film Festival where his film Dear Son is screened at the Directors' Fortnight.
Known For
Extremism slices through a Tunisian family with the realization that their teenage son has become an ISIS fighter.
Dear Son
Young Tunisian Hedi lives an ordered life in which he believes there can be no more surprises. His future will play out as other people have planned, until he meets a young woman named Rim at a hotel in Mahdia Hediand. An ostensibly personal story broadens into a panorama of a society in upheaval, an allegory about breaking away from traditions. And a film about the happiness and pain of freedom.
Hedi
Between an unrewarding job and the daily routine visit to the cafe-shop for a water-pipe, K is eager to give up his condition of frustrated and introverted bachelor to seduce Chahra, the girl of his dreams. Through a series of very particular Chinese massages, he manages to shape his personality according to the ever-changing and whimsical demands of his entourage.
Like the Others
After spending four years in jail, Rafik has only one plan, take his son behind the mountains and show him his amazing discovery.
Behind the Mountains
Shocked by the video of a woman who sets herself on fire, Ali, a young computer scientist, becomes a whistleblower to elicit empathy and rouse his stagnant society.
Ali
Over three periods of her life, a grandmother keeps repeating to her grandson the same apparently trivial story.
Wave
After the accidental death of her taxi-driver husband, Salma decides to become master of her own life by taking over his taxi. She comes up against the Kafkaesque procedures of Tunisian bureaucracy and the offhandedness of the insurance industry, but refuses to let go and is not intimidated by anything. With quiet determination, she also faces the conservatism of her in-laws who, under the pretext of morality, continue to dictate the way she should behave. In order to create a better future for her daughter but also for herself, Salma is locked in a daily struggle with the world around her.
Salma
In a movie theater, a man and a woman exchange a few words. Then, without them being able to see each other, each one of them plunges into his imagination by creating an image a little too idealized of the other.
Romantisme
Can a law challenge a whole system and causes chaos? The testimonies of 4 characters make us discover the repercussions of this new law on their respective lives.