Director

Naceur Ktari

Cast list

Zoubeir Bornaz...Taieb

Nourredine El Ati...Slah

Frida Kebaili...Amel

Lamine Nhadi...Brahim

Jelassi Jelloul

Belkis Cheriaa

Ines Baili

Sonia El Ati

Credits

Screenplay...Naceur Ktari

Producers...Jafar Jaafari, Naceur Ktari

Cinematography...George Le Chapois, Xavier Tauveron

Editing...Larbi Ben Ali, Yves Comte

Music...Lotfi Bouchnak

Sound...Florent Blanchard

Costumes...Anissa Bdiri

Set Decoration...Abdel Majid Gribaa

Synopsis

AKA Halou ou mer, or Sweet and Bitter

Barely recovered from a serious depression and against the advice of his psychiatrist, Slah, a theater director mentally weakened by his career, announces to his wife Amel, a wealthy woman who finances his projects, his decision to mount the famous play Essoud (Dam) by Mahmoud Messadi, known for its complexity. But that evening, driving his car, Slah reverses into a young woman named Aisha. First distraught, he experiences afterwards a strange fascination for this beautiful, young, modern girl who becomes his friend and muse. Amel, moral, emotional and financial convinces the theater to put on her husband’s production of “Dam”. She later learns of Aisha and suffers. Slah invests in the hard struggle of creation, and begins rehearsals. He passes through a series of tests, but at the intense peak of the work, his nerves let go. Hoping to save Slah, Amel decides to bring him to visit his parents in the oases of southern Tunisia.  Out of love for her husband, she decides to invite Aisha and a strange threesome forms in this magical place, where doubts and suspicions are revealed, temptations and desires emerge, and love and complicity reign.

Reviews

Deborah Young, Review: ‘Sweet and Bitter’, Variety (online magazine).

Modernization and Women in Tunisia: An Analysis through Selected Films by Çiçek Coskun.  The Graduate School of Social Sciences, Middle East Technical University (August 2006), pp. 1-202.