Four Daughters

Synopsis

A searing drama about mothers and daughters. An artistic tour-de-force that discovers powerful emotional truths in the tension between reality and fiction. Winner of the Cannes Film Festival’s Best Documentary Prize, Four Daughters introduces us to Tunisian matriarch Olfa Hamrouni, a steely, wounded parent of four beautiful young women. Her two eldest daughters, as Olfa tells us early in the story, were “devoured by the wolf.”

Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania explores the family tragedy that continues to haunt Olfa and her family through staged reenactments and intimate scenes between Olfa, the actors playing her and her two eldest daughters, and her younger daughters as themselves. The result is a provocative and cathartic look at their complex relationships, their sisterhood of laughter, love, and rebellion, and the social, religious, and family conflicts that led to their devastation.