Academy Award-nominee Kaouther Ben Hania’s Cannes prize-winning documentary “Four Daughters” won the Golden Eye for Best Documentary at the Cannes Film Festival. Now, Kino Lorber is releasing it this fall in limited release.
“Four Daughters” made its World Premiere as the sole Arab film in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival and its North American premiere in the Special Presentations section at the Toronto International Film Festival, and has been submitted as the official Tunisian entry for Best International Feature at the 96th Academy Awards.
READ MORE: ‘Four Daughters’ Cannes Review: A Tunisian Mother Loses Her Daughters To Wolves
The follow-up to Ben Hania’s Oscar-nominated 2020 narrative film, “The Man Who Sold His Skin,” for all accounts, the engaging docu-drama— about a Tunisian mother who has to reckon with the disappearance of two of her daughters to radicalization with two actors used to stage them for dramatic purposes—is an engaging winner.
“It will linger with you for days afterward,” our review wrote. “That’s mostly due to Olfa’s [The Tunsian mother’s] heartbreaking perseverance to find her children and a bit of Ben Hania’s storytelling skill, too.”
Here’s the official synopsis:
A riveting exploration of rebellion, memory, and sisterhood, Four Daughtersreconstructs the story of Olfa Hamrouni and her four daughters, unpacking a complex family history through intimate interviews and performance to examine how the Tunisian woman’s two eldest daughters were radicalized. Casting professional actresses as the missing eldest daughters Ghofrane and Rahma, along with acclaimed Egyptian-Tunisian actress Hend Sabri as Olfa, director Kaouther Ben Hania restages pivotal moments in the family’s life, interwoven with confessions and reflections from Olfa and younger daughters Eya and Tayssir that capture moments of joy, loss, violence, and heartache. Four Daughters is a compelling portrait of five women and a unique and ambitious work of nonfiction storytelling that questions the nature of memory, the weight of inherited trauma, and the ties that bind mother and daughter.
“Four Daughters” opens exclusively in theaters on October 27 in New York and on November 3 in Los Angeles, with expansion to follow. Watch the trailer below.
