HEDI

"[A] bittersweet Tunisian love story … offers further evidence that the rebirth of Tunisian cinema is underway." – Hollywood Reporter

Feckless and painfully shy, car salesman Hedi is burrowing headlong towards a marriage being arranged, without his input, by his domineering and emotionally manipulative mother, Baya. Out on the road a week before his nuptials, Hedi meets an impulsive and irrepressible dancer named Rim, and they soon end up in bed together. Rim represents everything Hedi wishes he could be, but the call of tradition is strong and rebellion could cost him everything he has.

Executive produced by the Dardenne brothers, Hedi is a sensitive and absorbing debut from writer/director Mohamed Ben Attia. It was one of the breakout movies at this year's Berlinale, winning awards for both Best First Feature and Best Actor for Majd Mastoura in his pitch-perfect turn as the repressed, yearning Hedi. As a glimmering portrait of young love, as well as a keen-eyed survey of a post-revolution Tunisia grappling with the lures of modernity, it offers a tender, gently humorous tale of amour and identity.