Pretty much a done deal for a major film festival launch in 2023 and sitting high up on our most anticipated list of directorial debuts, we can confirm that Meryam Joobeur‘s Motherhood is now in post and will get started on the editing this summer. Thanks to the Cineuropa folks we have a fresh batch of updates on the project.
We’ve learned that there was a mix of professional (the film’s matriarch) and non-professional actors; that the LuxBox Films folks will be repping the film and the film which we expected to be a full on drama will actually include some other genre elements deviating from basis of the short film “Brotherhood.” The film project was on our radar around the time that Joobeur attended the (virtual) Sundance Screenwriter’s Labs for the project.
Maria Gracia Turgeon who helped produce the Oscar-nominated (Live Short-Action) Brotherhood (who also produced the Oscar nominated short the previous year in another masterwork called Fauve by filmmaker Jérémy Comte — who also happens to have commenced lensing his directorial debut) is among the film’s producers. We also find Sara Ben Hassen and Nadim Cheikhrouha.
In rural Tunisia, Salha works to keep her family together when her sons leave to fight for the Islamic State. When her eldest returns home with a mysterious young wife in tow, she struggles to reconcile the darkness that he has brought back with him.
Sundance programmers are likely going to be ones to get a first look at the Canada-Tunisia-France project but this could very well find triple interest from those on the Croisette — everyone from Christian Jeune for the Un Certain Regard section to Ava Cahen for the Critics’ Week.
Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).
