The youngest of three sisters in a conservative Franco-Arab household, Fatima is absorbed in her studies and resisting the family pressure to be married off like her siblings. But the pull to explore sensual realms grows stronger by the day, exacerbated by the ever-growing disdain she feels for her secret gentleman caller who’s already planning their future. As the realization kicks in, she decides to pursue her attraction to women with abandon, opening herself up to a wide array of romantic highs and lows.
Hafsia Herzi (A Bag of Four, The Rapture) returns to VIFF with yet another emotionally astute drama featuring a notably sharp turn by Nadia Melliti, which earned her the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. Herzi’s skill for drawing out quietly intense, naturalistic performances truly shines in this beautifully lensed, layered character study where the weight of cultural identity inevitably pushes the envelope of relationship paradigms.
Best Actress (Nadia Melliti), Cannes 2025
Nadia Melliti, Ji-Min Park
France/Germany
2025
In French and Arabic with English subtitles
At International Village
At Fifth Avenue
Book Tickets
Credits & Director
Producer
Julie Billy, Naomi Denamur, Vanessa Ciszewski
Screenwriter
Hafsia Herzi
Cinematography
Jérémie Attard
Editor
Géraldine Mangenot
Production Design
Diéné Berete
Original Music
Amine Bouhafa
Hafsia Herzi
Filmography: You Deserve a Lover (2019); Good Mother (2021)
Photo by Chloe Carbonel
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Two Strangers Trying Not to Kill Each Other
This intimate and candid film by a younger husband and wife artist team is a delicate and immensely moving dual portrait of two artists, husband and wife, together and apart, at that point in life when the end casts a shadow over even the sunniest day.
Image: © Manon et Jacob and Final Cut For Real
Blue Road - The Edna O'Brien Story
Judging by this candid, funny, passionate biographical documentary, it would have been a wild ride to have been Irish novelist Edna O'Brien, or even to have been in her circle of friends and lovers. Well, for an hour and a half we can pretend we were.
Erupcja
Charli xcx headlines this indie gem about a young English couple coming unmoored over a few days in Warsaw. Will means to propose. Beth has cold feet -- and an escape hatch she has barely admitted to herself... Think Before Sunrise 2025.
Tony Wilson's The Homeless Project
Combining music, text, still photography, and film to shine a sympathetic light on Canada's urban dispossessed, The Homeless Project is the third in composer, guitarist Tony Wilson's series of multimedia projects addressing pressing social issues.