Eclipses

On December 31, 1980, between England and the mainland, two anonymous passengers were fouled by the British and Belgian authorities and found themselves prisoners on board the car ferry connecting the two frontiers.

With no news of her companion Seif, a Palestinian fighter who disappeared in Beirut, Houria, a stewardess with an Arab airline, returns to Tunisia in search of Khélil, a war photographer who was the last to meet the missing man. But she finds herself trapped in an environment under siege, transported back several centuries to the era of Arab chivalric epics with their abducted heroines and vengeances of honor.

Abu Yazid Ibn Khouadway Kadadadi begins his journey by rebelling against injustice, only to become a bloodthirsty tyrant as his revolution unspools.

This film, which events happened between 1924 and 1934, portrays the struggle of three young Tunisian friends who became true myths in the Tunisian society: Mhamed Ali El Hammi, the founder of the first Tunisian trade union; Tahar Hadded, a rebellious freedom and Human Rights militant, pioneer of the Tunisian Family Code, who in his writings called the whole Muslim world to reform women status in the society; and Belgacem Chebbi who renewed poetry, questioned the poet’s role and commitment, and initiated new language patterns. All three witnessed a tragic fate in an atmosphere of general indifference.

The film emerged from a 1976 play by the same ensemble. It explores the tragicomic lives of newlyweds from the petit-bourgeoisie, capturing their shattered existence with a blend of theatre and cinema. The Nouveau Théâtre members navigate a surreal landscape, suspended between nightmare and reality, with a hyper-presence of bodies accentuated by unchanging lighting.