A Bond That Breaks: Meryam Joobeur’s “Motherhood” Readying For Festival Launch in ’23

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.