Harrowing Tunisian film Red Path echoes the suffering of children in Gaza

Launching a film into the world can be a nerve-wracking affair, particularly when it’s as potent and provocative as Red Path. This harrowing Tunisian movie, which played over the weekend at the Red Sea International Film Festival in Jeddah, has already won plaudits on the festival scene, including an audience award in Vancouver, but it is yet to be unveiled in its homeland.

"We are eager," producer Anissa Daoud tells The National. “Reaction here and reaction of the Tunisian diaspora makes us even more excited, because we felt that we are seen and heard and understood.”

Set in November 2015, in the wake of unrest in Tunisia, the film is based on real tragic events – the killing of a shepherd Mabrouk Soltani, 17, who was brutally murdered by extremists under the belief he was a spy for the military. Co-written and directed by Lotfi Achour, the film follows 13-year-old shepherd Ashraf (Ali Hleli) and his older cousin Nizar (Yassine Samouni). A tranquil afternoon herding goats in the Mghila Mountain region soon becomes horrifying beyond recognition, as the boys are attacked by unseen assailants. Nizar is decapitated, the boy’s head unceremoniously dumped next to Ali, who is left alive.

While the film is never explicit and holds back on political context, those behind the attacks were militants. At the time, more than 3,000 Tunisians had become radicalised, leaving the country to fight for ISIS and other jihadist groups in Syria, Iraq and Libya. In the eyes of Achour, who co-wrote the script with Natacha de Pontcharra, this already painful story has become even more relevant following the escalating conflict in Gaza since October 7.

“When we decided to do this movie, the situation was completely different in Gaza,” he explains. “But for me, there is a direct relationship between this movie and what has unfolded in Gaza. We are witnessing violence against children. This is why we did not focus on the extremists and the jihadists. What we wanted to focus on was the question of violence and especially violence against young kids. For me, people have to establish this direct relationship of violence against thousands of children who have been killed or displaced … because these children are affected for generations ahead.”

Seen from the perspective of Ashraf, Red Path might be described as a ghost story, with the boy haunted by his cousin’s death. With the film beautifully rendered and dreamlike, the filmmakers admit they debated whether or not to show the stomach-churning moment when Nizar’s head is placed in front of his cousin. “Now what we are witnessing, it seemed like nothing,” argues Daoud, in reference to the violence in Gaza that has made headlines over the past year. “And that is horrible to say that we are used to this image.”

One of the 16 films playing in competition at RSIFF, Red Path has evidently been striking a chord everywhere it plays. Daoud reports that a fellow producer from Tijuana, Mexico, saw the film during the Saudi festival and immediately related, due to the proliferation of drug-related deaths among those “caught in the crossfire”, exploited by the all-powerful cartels. Daoud apportions blame on the Tunisian government, doing little to alleviate the economic and social disparities. “This abandonment creates people who wants to go to ISIS,” she says.

Shot rapidly over only 12 days, despite a protracted rehearsal process to help the cast to bond with their characters, what the production was unable to do was film in the Mghila Mountains. “It was too dangerous…at the time,” explains Daoud. There were other more practical reasons that sent the production to shoot in the Kef region, in north-west Tunisia, close to the Algerian border.

“There was no touristic or hotel infrastructure and we had a big crew so this is why we decided to go 100 km north, which had the same landscape and mountains,” explains Achour.

What impresses about Red Path is the authenticity of the performances, notably among the young leads, who all come from the area where the story takes place.

"Ali, who plays Ashraf, lives in this region, and this is actually how he lives,” says the Tunis-born Achour, a playwright who has produced more than 25 theatrical works. “After school, he takes his sheep to the mountains. So these children were not strangers to this reality. With nature around them. Whether it’s difficult or beautiful, they are not strangers. And they are not strangers to the jihadist phenomenon.”

According to Daoud, the youngsters in the cast were familiar with the “legacy” of the story. “They were shocked, as we all were. They were proud that their region, their culture and their language was represented. They felt that we were respecting them.”

The production took great care not only to cast locally, but to recruit those from the area wishing to work behind the camera. “We had this preoccupation as producers to not come from the outside, make the movie and get out,” Daoud says.