Hend Sabri, Nour Karoui, Ichraq Matar, Majd Mastoura
Fact and fiction mix in Kaouther Ben Hania’s astonishing hybrid docudrama, screened in Competition at Cannes this year, which stars professional actresses alongside real family members in a retelling of a Tunisian mother’s heartbreak over two of her daughters’ departures to fight for the Islamic State.
Olfa (Hend Sabri) is the mother of four daughters. One day, her two eldest, Rahma and Ghofrane, disappear, bound to fight for IS in Syria. Some years later, Ben Hania invites two actresses in to the frame, bringing the viewer closer in to the life stories of Olfa and her daughters, and in combining direct interviews with dramatic re-enactments, attempting to understand their relationships, their past, and the process of radicalisation.
An intimate meditation on motherhood, sisterhood, rebellion and hope, and an experiment into the power of the imagination and of performance, Four Daughters takes the building blocks of filmmaking and uses them to craft something cathartic, affecting, original and rare.
