The screening of Arab films will take place in International Feature Film Competition and Burning Lights Competition.
Swiss documentary film festival Visions du Réel (VdR) has announced the lineup of its 54th edition, which will take place in person and online from April 21 to 30, 2023.
This year’s slate comprises two films from the MENA region, one from Lebanon and one from Iran.
Machtat by Sonia Ben Slama, a Tunisia/France/Qatar/Lebanon co-production, will have its world premiere in the International Feature Film Competition, and An Owl, a Garden & the Writer by Sara Dolatabadi, an Iranian/France co-production, will screen in the Burning Lights Competition. Dolatabadi’s film won the Works in Progress Post-Production Development Award during the 2021 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival’s Eastern Promises industry programme.
The event will screen a total of 163 films from 46 countries, with a 50-50 parity between female and male directors including 82 world premieres, 11 international premieres, two European premieres and 26 Swiss premieres.
Machtat follows the lives of three women musicians, Fatma and her two daughters, Najeh and Waffeh. They live in Bir Beranek, in the small town of Mahdia, Tunisia. During the summer, they go from one wedding to another to celebrate and bless the union of young women. Najeh and Waffeh follow opposite paths. Najeh, divorced for 12 years, is looking for a new husband to escape the authority of her brothers. Waffeh wishes to divorce her violent husband but doesn’t know where to go with her four children. And Fatma navigates between the two, praying that things will go better and that she can retire one day.
An Owl, a Garden and the Writer is produced by Dolatabadi, Amir Naderi and Farhad Mohammadi.
The film focuses on the poetic revelation of one of Iran’s most prominent writers, Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, as his daughter records his imaginary world, blurring the lines of perceived reality for the audience, while exploring the secret garden of his life as a novelist and solitary routine.