Artist in Person

(La Saison des hommes). Having won festival prizes for her exquisite breakthrough film The Silences of the Palace (1994), Tlatli returns with an incisive look at gender politics and a compelling depiction of women in contemporary Tunisia. The Season of Men tells the story of Aïcha, a carpetweaver whose husband works in Tunis for eleven months of the year while his wife remains in Djerba, in a household run by his mother, as is the custom. The return of the men ("the season of men") is experienced as a kind of festivity, and the women look forward to it like a new honeymoon. On her wedding night, however, Aïcha speaks of her desire to break with the custom and expresses her eagerness to go live with Saïd in Tunis. Aïcha will spend many years waiting for her season. Inspired by traditional Djerban folktales and popular culture, Tlatli's film is as beautiful as it is subtle and moving.

Moufida Tlatli was Tunisia's most important film editor, working on many of the best Arab films of the seventies and eighties, before becoming a director. She won the San Francisco International Film Festival's Satyajit Ray award in 1995 for The Silences of the Palace.