Marie & Jolie
Spring Grants 2024 - Production Stage
Erige Sehiri / Feature Narrative / France, Tunisia, Qatar / 100 min / Original Language: Arabic, French / Interests: Comedy, Drama
Synopsis
Marie, a 45-year-old pastor of Cameroonian origin, has been living in Tunisia for 15 years. She has established her own evangelical church at home, dedicating herself to her congregation and the wider community. However, her unfulfilled desire to start a family emphasizes her unconventional status as a single pastor. Jolie, a 22-year-old from Côte d’Ivoire, has recently arrived to continue her engineering studies. Due to recent tensions in Tunisia, her father insists she lives with Marie, despite Jolie’s reluctance. She must adapt to the house rules and share a room with Naney, a 30-year-old whose lifestyle and poor decisions frustrate her. As they prepare for a big Christmas celebration, Marie’s driver Brahim arrives with Kenza, a 4-year-old girl found alone at the edge of the desert following the expulsion of hundreds of migrants from the south of the country. The three women take Kenza in temporarily, hoping to reunite her with her family. While Marie holds onto the hope of a Christmas miracle, Naney sees Kenza as the daughter she left behind in her home country. Meanwhile, Jolie hesitates to inform the authorities, uncertain of the best course of action. In this blended family and in a country in crisis, each woman must find her place, navigate their differences, and come together to create a home for Kenza and themselves.
Credits
- Director
- Erige Sehiri
- Screenwriter
- Erige Sehiri, Anna Ciennick
- Producer
- Didar Domehri, Erige Sehiri
- Production Company
- Maneki Films, Henia Production
About the Director
Erige Sehiri is a French-Tunisian director and producer. A former journalist, she began her film career making documentaries, placing workers with invisible destinies at the heart of her films. After her first short film, 'My Father's Facebook,' she made an acclaimed feature-length documentary, 'Railway Men' (2018), reflecting the daily struggle of railway workers. In 2022, she wrote, directed, and produced her first feature-length fiction film, 'Under the Fig Trees' (54th Directors' Fortnight, Cannes 2022), which was selected to represent Tunisia at the 2023 Oscars. The film was screened at festivals worldwide and released in some twenty countries. Sehiri is active in civil society, co-founding the NGO Al KHATT to promote freedom of expression and media education among young people. She is also co-founder of the Rawiyat-Sisters in Film collective. Sehiri ensures to raise awareness of ecological productions and won the Jury Prize for Best Ecological Production 2022 for her first feature-length film.
Contacts
-
Main Contact
Didar Domehri
- Company:
- Maneki Films
- Phone:
- +33 1 43 55 07 94
- Email:
- didar@maneki-films.com
-
Main Contact
Erige Sehiri
- Company:
- Henia Production
- Email:
- heniaproduction@gmail.com