In Aicha, the second film by Tunisian director Mehdi Barsaoui, a young woman named Aya dreams of freedom. She is trapped in an oppressive existence – merely surviving day by day, unable to speak or live her truth, taken for granted by her family and her employer.
But one day, an opportunity presents itself. Her bus crashes on the way to work. She is the only survivor and decides to hide, letting the world think she is dead. Unburdened by her past, she believes she can finally live the life she always wished for herself – only to soon discover that life is not that simple.
In the eyes of Barsaoui, that’s the same situation Tunisia found itself in nearly 14 years ago. In 2011, an uprising deposed then-President Ben Ali and instilled many in the country with hope for the first time in decades. But underlying societal flaws cannot be erased that easily.
Barsaoui’s film, premiering this week at the Venice Film Festival, is many things – a feminist call to action, a denunciation of police corruption, an engrossing crime thriller. But more than anything else, it’s an allegory of his country of Tunisia, he tells The National, and a message about how his country can overcome its problems.
“This is a story of salvation and emancipation,” Barsaoui tells The National. “And it’s a metaphor about the situation of Tunisia. Aya and Tunisia are on the same path. It’s complicated, it’s messy, but we have to go through different obstacles to seek true freedom.
“Since the revolution, we’ve been allowed to talk about what we want as people, and as artists. The most important thing for us is that we can freely express our opinions – to criticise the police, the politicians, and the institutions. I think that’s very beautiful.”
As the film goes on, Aya’s initial lack of honesty sets her on a dangerous path. She assumes a false name, rents a room in the home of another young woman and begins to spend time with the woman’s powerful male friends.
But the woman and her friends are not as friendly as they initially appear. One night in a club in Tunis, a young man makes advances, leading Aya to tell him that she’s not interested. But her roommate’s male friend quickly inserts himself into the situation, which leads to the young man’s violent death within moments of this everyday encounter, and a police cover up in its wake.
Aya is faced with a dilemma – does she bow to pressure and turn a blind eye, or does she choose honesty and justice? “Aya thinks her journey begins when she fakes her death, but it really begins in the discotheque. This is a journey towards truth, both in the police investigation but also the truth in herself. She has to sacrifice herself, and sacrifice her path, if she’s ever going to live as a truly free person,” says Barsaoui.
The inciting incident for the film was inspired by true events, Barsaoui says, but evolved once his own life began to transform. “In 2019 there was a real girl in Tunisia who, after a bus accident, decided to fake her death. It was all over the radio and TV here. She did it to test the love of her parents.
“At first, I was interested in the courage of this girl to do something like this, but it wasn’t enough of an idea for my second feature, I felt. But then I learnt that my wife was pregnant, and we had a little girl. And then this girl who faked her death came back to mind. But now I wasn’t thinking from the perspective of the girl, but from my perspective as a parent.
“I started asking myself all these questions. I started travelling with this character and she was travelling with me. Then the story started to come together and became a starting point to talk about the state of my country.”
It took him 12 drafts over a period of three years to get the film right, as he struggled to imbue the characters with enough layers that would make her feel real, not to mention all the layers of meaning he wanted to instil within the story itself. And it had to feel real.
The actress who played Aya would have to feel real too, he felt. And he’d never be able to accomplish that with the traditional casting process, so he devised something different to find his lead performer – a game.
“It went like this,” Barsaoui explains. “I had all of these people in front of me and I told them: 'We are in a police station, you have faked your death and I am the policeman. You have to see how long you can go without revealing your true identity'.”
Fatma Sfar, who ultimately was cast as Aya, stood out quickly. “When I saw Fatma, it was obvious. She’s really smart as Aya, and she had this fragility in her eyes and in her body movements. The second I saw her, I knew that she would be my Aya.”
From start to finish, both in front of and behind the camera, Barsaoui felt that Aicha had to be a pursuit of truth. That’s what the film needed and, he believes, that’s what Tunisia needs too.
“Because of that, to present this film in Venice with a political message is a victory for all of us,” he says. “It’s important to talk about all the things that are not going well in our country, especially almost 14 years after the revolution. We need to be honest with ourselves and the world. And this film is an act of honesty.”
Aicha premieres this week at the Venice Film Festival
