![‘Promised Sky’ Trailer: Erige Sehiri’s Cannes Drama Follows A Makeshift Family Shaped By Migration [Exclusive]](https://cdn.theplaylist.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/05080226/Promised-Sky.jpg "‘Promised Sky’ Trailer: Erige Sehiri’s Cannes Drama Follows A Makeshift Family Shaped By Migration [Exclusive]")
For Erige Sehiri, stories of work, movement, and fragile community have been central from the start. The French-Tunisian filmmaker, producer, and former journalist broke through internationally with “Under the Fig Trees,” her 2022 first feature, which premiered at Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight and was selected as Tunisia’s submission for the Academy Awards. Her second feature, “Promised Sky,” continued that Cannes trajectory last year, premiering in Un Certain Regard with another intimate ensemble drama, this time centered on migrant women in Tunisia.
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The trailer has arrived for Sehiri’s “Promised Sky,” which premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. The film follows Marie, an Ivorian pastor and former journalist played by Aïssa Maiga, who opens her home in Tunisia to three generations of migrant women: Naney, Jolie, and Kenza.
Naney, played by Debora Lobe Naney, is a mother trying to secure residency status and build a better life for herself and her daughter. Jolie, played by Laetitia Ky, is in Tunisia on a student visa while struggling under her family’s expectations. Kenza, played by Estelle Kenza Dogbo, is an orphaned child and the only survivor of a shipwreck carrying refugees to Tunisia. As Marie becomes Kenza’s caregiver and a source of support for Naney and Jolie, the four women begin to form a makeshift family under the pressure of poverty, conflict, and alienation.
Sehiri co-wrote the film with Anna Ciennik and Malika Cécile Louati. The cast also includes Foued Zaazaa, Mohamed Grayaa, and Touré Blamassi. Didar Domehri and Sehiri produced, with cinematography by Frida Marzouk.
Early reviews from Cannes have emphasized the film’s restraint and humanist focus. Sehiri’s background in documentary remains part of the frame here. Before her narrative features, she directed “Railway Men,” a 2018 documentary about Tunisian railway workers, and co-founded INKYFADA and the Tunisian NGO Al KHATT. She is also a founding member of RawiyatSisters in Film, a collective supporting women filmmakers across the Arab world and diaspora.
“Promised Sky” opens in theaters beginning June 12, 2026. Watch the trailer below.
