Directed by Kaouther Ben Hania
Tunisia | 2017 | Fiction | 100 min | Arabic w/English subtitles
Film Source: Oscilloscope
Awards / premier festivals: Cannes - Un Certain Regard
Sponsor: Peace & Justice Center
Kaouther Ben Hania (The Challat of Tunis, VTIFF 2015) returns with this powerful and intelligently structured film, loosely based on a real event. A fun-filled evening descends into a Kafkaesque nightmare for a 21-year-old woman (the absolutely amazing Mariam Al Ferjani). The drama — her rape by two policemen and her subsequent attempts to see justice done — brilliantly unfolds in such a way that we, too, begin to doubt the woman’s testimony. Beauty and the Dogs provides a feminist spin on the continued battle for basic legal rights following the 2011 ousting of Tunisia’s Ben Ali regime. It’s a powerful look at the frustrations and futility of what happens in a patriarchal society when the perpetrators are also the law enforcers ~ OY