My Father Killed Bourguiba
Spring Grants 2021 - Development Stage
Fatma Riahi / Feature Documentary / Tunisia, Qatar / Original Language: Arabic / Interests: Documentary
Synopsis
This film depicts the journey of director Fatma Riahi, in search of her father’s story. A search that begins 15 years after his death and 33 years after his decision to be a part of a group that planned to overthrow the Tunisian regime of president Bourguiba in a military coup. Her father’s dream of change turned their family and personal life upside down, and Fatma has since been beset by a multitude of increasingly pressing questions. A mother in her thirties herself, she is now trying to understand her father’s choices at the same age and their impact on the little girl she was then and the woman she has become. This poetic, political and intimate story opens the memory box, flips through her father’s notebooks and gives voice to his friends’ testimonies. By using 2D animation, Fatma will recall the drawings she used to draw for and with her father. So many memories, images and stories to heal wounds, look back on what happened to him, her, the family and Tunisia and many others in the same situation—all the ones involved in struggles and conflicts they did not choose.
Credits
- Director
- Fatma Riahi
- Screenwriter
- Fatma Riahi
- Producer
- Erige Sehiri
About the Director
Fatma Riahi worked as a producer/director on short documentaries in Tunisia. In 2011, Fatma made a mid-length TV documentary, ‘Tunisia... The Revolution Continues’, which was about the Tunisian revolution. In the same year, she joined Al Jazeera Media Network as a producer in the Production Department. In 2015, she started working on her first feature film, ‘A Haunted Past’, which was nominated in IDFA 2018 for the First Appearance competition. It was also viewed in the special selection in Hot Docs 2019, RIDM 2019, and the Durban International Film Festival. ‘A Haunted Past’ won the Anhar Award for the best human rights film 2019 at the Karama Film Festival – Amman and the Bronze Tanit in JCC (Carthage Film Festival) 2019. Fatma is now working on her second feature, ‘My Father Killed Bourguiba’.
Contacts
-
Main Contact
Fatma Riahi
- Company:
- Al Jazeera Documentary
- Phone:
- 4403 4889
- Email:
- RiahiF@aljazeera.net