Montrealer Meryam Joobeur's first-ever feature film, Là où l'on fait, has been selected in official competition at the 74th Berlin International Film Festival, taking place next month. The Quebecer of American-Tunisian origin will compete for the Golden Bear at the Berlinale alongside big names in international auteur cinema such as Olivier Assayas, Bruno Dumont, Hong Sang-Soo, Abderrahmane Sissako and Mati Diop.
Published yesterday at 7:00 p.m.
How do we feel when one of the four largest film festivals in the world gives us such an honor? “It's a bit surreal to be honest. I think I won't really believe it until I'm there with the whole team,” the young filmmaker told me, arriving in Paris on Monday where she is finishing the mixing of her film, co-produced by Canada, France and Tunisia.
Despite her 32 years, Meryam Joobeur is not yet at her best. His most recent short film, the disturbing and poetic short film Brotherhood, was a 2020 Oscar finalist. It has been screened at more than 150 festivals and won 75 international awards, including Best Short Film at the Toronto International Film Festival, as well as being honored at the Toronto International Film Festival Gala Québec Cinema.
Where We Come From, co-produced by Maria Gracia Turgeon and Annick Blanc of Montreal production house Midi la Nuit (behind the excellent short film Fauve by Jeremy Comte), starring Salha Nasraoui, Mohamed Hassine Grayaa, Malek Mechergui, Adam Bessa and Dea Liane, Rayen Mechergui and Chaker Mechergui.
Most of these actors were part of the cast of “Brotherhood,” about the return of a young Tunisian to his family a year after he left for Syria to fight for the Islamic State group. He returns, to the happiness of his mother and younger brothers, but to the despair of his father, a shepherd who finds it difficult to digest the return of the prodigal son in the arms of a woman wearing the niqab.
Where We Come From, whose working title was “Motherhood,” is more interested in the mother’s view of her eldest sons who were fighting in jihad when one of them returned to the village with his very young wife.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY MIDNIGHT
Still from the film “Where We Come From”.
“I see the two films as yin and yang,” the author and filmmaker explains to me. The two stories complement each other. The context is similar, but the treatment of the story, the point of view and the themes are different. I felt like I was exploring completely new territory. »
I changed the title of the film when I realized that the question I had been asking myself for five years was: Who owns my life? This is a question that touches me deeply and that guided the creation of this film.
Meryam Joobeur, director
Meryam Joobeur spent her early childhood in Tunisia but grew up in the United States, where she was born during her father's graduate studies. She came to Montreal in 2009 to study at McGill University and then studied cinema at Concordia University. She decided to stay, like several other artists from abroad who studied at the university here.
“My cameraman [Vincent Gonneville] I just texted myself to remind myself that eight years ago to the day we were exploring northern Tunisia and met the three brothers who star in both films. We went on a road trip to get inspired and be creative and it led to this unforgettable life experience. »
“Where We Come From” is one of only two first feature films in official competition at the 74th Berlinale, which opens on February 15 with Belgian director Tim Mielants’ “Small Things Like These,” about the Catholic Church’s treatment of Irish women in the 1980s The film, produced by and starring Cillian Murphy and set to be nominated for the Oscars this Tuesday for his role in “Oppenheimer,” is also among the 20 films in competition.
It is the jury chaired by the Mexican-Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong'o, the first black person to hold this position, who is responsible for awarding the Golden Bear on February 25, after the award to the documentary Sur l' Adamant des Frenchman Nicolas Philibert, in 2023.
Among the candidates we find in particular Another End by the Italian Piero Messina (L'attesa) with Gael Garcia Bernal and Bérénice Bejo, Black Tea by the Mauritanian Abderrahmane Sissako, filmmaker of the excellent Timbuktu, A Traveler's Needs du Sud-Korean Hong Sang-Soo with Isabelle Huppert, Dahomey, a documentary by the French-Senegalese Mati Diop (Atlantique), Hors du temps by the French Olivier Assayas (Les destines sentimentales), autobiographical story with Vincent Macaigne as the filmmaker's alter ego, locked up during the pandemic with his brother (journalist Michka Assayas), A Different Man by American Aaron Shimberg, which caused a stir at Sundance last week, and L'empire by Frenchman Bruno Dumont (L'Humanité, France) with Camille Cottin and Fabrice Luchini, announced as a pastiche of Star Wars…
“We are particularly proud of this year's selection, which achieves the best possible balance between authors we admire and value and powerful new voices in the independent cinema landscape,” said artistic director Carlo Chatrian on Monday, who is in his final year on is the head of the Berlinale.
On Monday, Chatrian also presented the works of the parallel Encounters section, including the first film by the French writer Christine Angot, Une famille, an autobiographical documentary on the subject of incest. Several other films have already been announced in recent weeks, including that of Quebecois Philippe Lesage (“The Demons”, “Genesis”), who will present “Comme le feu” in the “Generation” section dedicated to young audiences. An Honorary Golden Bear will also be awarded to the American master Martin Scorsese.
Will Meryam Joobeur win Quebec's first Golden Bear for a feature film since Ted Kotcheff's The Lessons of Duddy Kravitz in 1974? La Presse will be there to answer the question.