DUBAI: Tunisian director Mohamed Ben Attia’s “Behind the Mountains” — funded by Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Fund — will screen as part of the upcoming 80th Venice Film Festival’s official selection, in the coveted Horizons category.
The official synopsis for the film reads: “After spending four years in jail, Rafik has only one plan, take his son behind the mountains and show him his amazing discovery.”
The cast includes Majd Mastoura, Walid Bouchhioua, Samer Bisharat, Selma Zeghidi, Helmi Dridi and Wissem Belgharek.
Ben Attia, who won acclaim with “Hedi,” about a young man torn between duty and passion in the wake of the Jasmine Revolution, also made waves with his second film “Dear Son,” which follows a father trying to trace his child who has run away to join Daesh. With this picture, Ben Attia tries to tease out the malaise behind the lure of Daesh for disaffected Muslim youths.
The director also believed the story could be transposed to many parts of the globe. “There is a sort of misery, not only spiritual but emotional, not so much a thirst for ideology as a desire to walk away from this lifestyle … and all the values that are foisted on us,” he said in an interview with AFP.
“They could be living in Paris or elsewhere, it’s the same,” Ben Attia added.
On Tuesday, Venice festival director Alberto Barbera presented a program that included some of the most anticipated features of the year, including movies from Bradley Cooper, Sofia Coppola, Yorgos Lanthimos, Michael Mann and Ava DuVernay.
Originally, Luca Guadagnino’s “Challengers,” a tennis drama starring Zendaya, Josh O’Connor, and Mike Faist, was set to open the festival but was pulled last week owing to the actors’ and writers’ strikes in the US. Instead, “Comandante,” an Italian period drama from director Edoardo De Angelis, will open the festival on Aug. 30.
