TLAMESS

S is a young soldier in the desert of southern Tunisia. When he learns of his mother’s death, he is granted a week’s home leave – and does not return to the camp. He deserts, evades pursuit and disappears into a forest that no longer obeys the laws of the outside world. In parallel the film tells of F, a woman from the city who does not know what to do with the news of her pregnancy. The two do not know each other, and nothing in their stories connects them, until their paths cross in that very forest. “Tlamess” (Tunisia, 2019) is the second feature by Ala Eddine Slim.

Slim tells the story almost without dialogue and without the logic of ordinary dramaturgy; the slow, silent transformation of his two characters reads as an allegory that refuses to settle on one meaning. The director, born in Sousse in 1982, co-produced the film. It premiered in 2019 in the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes. “Tlamess” was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2019 in the Berlinale World Cinema Fund section.

Shown at the 2019 edition of Around the World in 14 Films.

All films 2019 · Film Archive