A TALE OF LOVE AND DESIRE

| 2023 – 102′ – Drama, Romance
Written by: Leyla Bouzid.
Directed by: Leyla Bouzid.
Starring: Sami Outalbali, Zbeida Belhajamor, Diong-Keba Tacu, Aurélia Petit, Mahia Zrouki, Bellamine Abdelmalek, Mathilde Lamusse.
Official selection Critic’s Week Cannes 2021.
Official Competition COLCOA 2021.
In French with English subtitles.
A Distrib Films US / Under the Milky Way release. |

Leyla Bouzid’s assured, introspective second feature is indeed brimming with both love and desire. This soft-spoken coming-of-age story tells the tale of Ahmed, a highly-conflicted French-Algerian student from the projects, and Farah, a free-spirited, sensual young woman from Tunisia. Enrolled in the same Arabic poetry class at the Sorbonne, the attraction between them is immediate. But Ahmed is torn — almost paralyzed — between his traditional ideal of a “pure love” and the eroticism that both Farah and Arabic poetry have awakened in him. As their literature professor says on the first day of class, “Desire, desire, and yet more desire. Is that not what literature is all about?”

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