Mehdi Hmili
Directing
Biography
Mehdi Hmili is a Tunisian writer and filmmaker. He studied cinema in Tunisia before graduating from the Paris Film School. While in France, he directed his short trilogy about love and exile — X-MOMENT (2009), LI-LA (2011), and THE NIGHT OF BADR (2012). His first feature-length film, THALA MON AMOUR (2016), was selected for several worldwide film festivals like the Torino and Carthage film festivals and won several prizes. Hmili is part of a new wave of young Tunisian filmmakers and is a major figure in the current Tunisian cinematographic landscape. He is also a popular poet in Tunisia, known for his poems against the regime of Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, and founded Yol Film House in Tunisia, which produced several award-winning fiction films and documentaries in several international festivals. His last documentary film FOULEDH was selected for La Fabrique Cinema at the 72nd Cannes Film Festiva and won several development prizes such as the El Gouna Film Festival Award and the Special Mention of the Film Prize of Robert Bosch Stiftung 2019.
Known For
Within the walls of his silent studio, a talented painter faces the bitterness of repeated failures and neglect. As his art and ambitions fade under life’s harsh demands, he embarks on a human journey seeking light amid the darkness of despair.
El Matbaa
Amel is released from prison after an adulterous affair. In the violent streets of Tunis, Amel seeks her missing son Moumen, a young football player destroyed by the scandal. During her journey, Amel has to face Tunisian society in ruins.
Streams
Beginning of January 2011, during the Tunisian revolution, Mohamed, a political prisoner, escapes from jail and returns to his native town Thala. He finds it in the midst of a revolt. He has only one goal: to find his fiancée Hourya. Mohamed is helped in his flight by Belgacem a coalman and former agent of the regime who is hoping to be redeemed. He hides Mohamed in his garage. On the night of January 9th, Mohamed witnesses yet another slaughter. As he carries the dead body of a young man to hospital, a young protestor films him on his cell phone and the video is uploaded on Facebook. Meanwhile, we discover Hourya who lives with her husband, Adel, a quiet man who has accepted her past but forbids her of taking part in any political activity. Hourya who was raped in prison after Mohamed's arrest, believes that Mohamed has died under torture and to save her own life, she accepted to get married to Adel whom she does not love.
Thala My Love
Mohamed, a steelworker shattered by the death of his friend in a tragic accident, lives with a piece of rusted metal lodged in his head. As the rust spreads through his body, he rises against corruption, becoming a symbol of resistance and sacrifice.
Exile
Jannet, a factory worker, fights alongside her coworkers to save her textile factory from bankruptcy in a brutal battle against capitalism and institutional bureaucracy.