Artist in Person

The Perfumed Garden is a journey into the myths and realities of sensuality and sexuality in Arabo–Muslim societies and a provocative exploration of a complex world of taboos. By excavating a marginalized Islamic erotic literature, Benguigui's powerful documentary makes an original contribution to the increasingly publicized debate around such topics as gender relations, pleasure, and sexual desire in contemporary North Africa. Interweaving interviews with men and women of all ages and classes who recount how sexuality is lived in their own daily lives, The Perfumed Garden probes the rich legacy of sensuality and fantasy of the Thousand and One Nights that permeates contemporary Arab culture, and shows that this world of pleasure and proscription remains a form of survival and resistance. As recently observed by Egyptian film critic Magda Wassef, "The film brings to light the discrepancy that exists between an extraordinary fertile imaginary and a horribly frustrating reality."

Yamina Benguigui is the director of Mémoires d'immigrés, l'héritage maghrébin (1998), a powerful documentary on immigration to France; and a new film Inch'Allah Sunday.