Hedi

(Opening Film)

The struggles of individuals vying for personal freedom away from the constraints of duty and tradition seem to be the basis of many of the films featured in this year’s VFF – at least in those I have seen so far.

Hedi, which opens the Festival on Friday is no different, chronicling at is does the eponymous protagonist’s awakening to the fact that the path life (and his mother) planned out for him is not necessarily the one he should take.

Hedi (Majd Mastoura) is a bit of a sad sack of a man; a car salesman with zero interest in his job; almost as much interest as he has for his looming, arranged marriage with the pretty but unambitious Khedija. While on a sales trip to a neighbouring city, Hedi meets Rim (Rym Ben Messaoud), an entertainer in a hotel, and he immediately falls for her vibrant personality and zest for life, which in turn awaken in him feelings he never knew existed.

Yet, as the adage goes, ‘be careful what you wish for’ and as his feeling for Rym deepen, Hedi is unsure whether he has the courage to escape his domineering mother and bleak future and realise his dreams.

Mastoura has deservedly won the Silver Bear award for Best Actor at this year’s Berlinale for his sympathetic portrayal of a man trying to break out of his own skin,. As the story unfolds, Mastoura expertly charting the course of Hedi’s journey from introverted reticence – all sullen glances, monosyllabic mumblings and utter indifference to everything around him, to the confident independent young man, egged on by Ben Messaoud’s unforced joie-de-vivre filled Rym.

Although this is a low-key and intimate drama, many of the problems currently plaguing Tunisia loom large within Hedi – the post-revolution effects, the economic downturn and the threat of terrorism that has affected its tourism industry... all illustrating a country in metamorphosis, much like its protagonist.

Wallis

(Official Competition – Documentary)

The documentary Wallis opens with news footage familiar to many – the November 9, 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall... footage capturing triumphant moments after 28 years of separation, the people on both sides of it coming together as it crumbles.

And yet, as this eye-opening documentary so clearly illustrates, across the globe there exist many more walls which have yet to come down; concrete structures, barbed wire and electrical fences whose purpose is to keep people desperate for a better future at bay.

The documentary takes place on the borders between the US and Mexico, Morocco and Spain, and Zimbabwe and South Africa. Filmmakers Pablo Iraburu and Migueltxo Molina focus their cameras on a handful of displaced people, literally at the feet of these walls. They observe them dispassionately yet in doing so, they offer the viewer a chance to learn much about these people’s hopes and dreams, dreams that can only be realised on the other side of those forbidding walls. The documentary also features the people keeping them out, people who are simply doing their job; and in Al Enciso, a good Samaritan who lives on the US side of the border who goes way out of his way to help.

That the global refugee crisis makes headlines almost on a daily basis has risked numbing us to these people’s plight as politicians tie themselves in knots desperately seeking solutions, to no avail. Crucially, Wallis is not concerned with politics. Rather, its power lies in its ability to give a human face to the issue, and in getting to know Caren in Mexico, Bokhar and Gariba in Morocco and Meza in Zimbabwe, our consciences may be pricked hard enough for us to truly acknowledge the fact that these people have stories which need to be told, and no walls should prevent us from hearing them, ever.

24 weeks

(Official Competition – Featiure Film)

24 Weeks touches the scalding hot-button issue of abortion, as successful comedian Astrid (Julia Jentsch) and her partner Markus (Bjarne Mädel) discover that the baby she is carrying has Down’s syndrome and a severe heart defect and they face a heart-breaking decision. Should she keep the child or not?

It is a topic that certainly fans the flames of contentious debate, and the film’s director and co-writer Anne Zohra Berrached (who wrote the screenplay with Carl Gerber) pulls no punches in presenting her protagonists with a seemingly hopeless situation.

However, Berrached seems keen to not take sides, and on the one hand, so detached is she in the telling of the story that for the most part audiences cannot truly get emotionally or intellectually involved. On the other hand, devices like the starkly clear ultrasound foetal images that suddenly pop up feel like manipulation rather than a reminder of what is at stake.

Astrid and Markus greet the initial diagnosis stoically and are subject to token reactions of disbelief and support from their families and friends; the reaction from their nine-year-old daughter is one that deserves greater depth. A scene in which doctors explain the complicated surgeries the baby will have to go through once delivered is done so clinically and sketchily that it comes nowhere near offering the basis Astrid needs to ultimately take a decision leaving her – and us – wanting more answers.

Jentsch makes for a sympathetic protagonist and commits fully to the role, channelling the character’s fluctuating emotions of pain, disbelief, hope, and despair, especially in the film’s final third where it packs a truly emotional punch. It is a shame that the story didn’t carry that much weight since the start, as it would have made for a much more powerful film, one such a highly emotive and divisive topic deserves. As it is, there is little here that may challenge the existing opinions of those on either side of the debate.

Sandstorm

(Without Borders section)

Two incredibly strong women are at the heart of Sandstorm, a drama from Israel. Set in a fiercely traditional Bedouin village, the film finds Jalila (Ruba Blal-Asfour) a 42-year-old woman seething with dignified resentment as she hosts her husband Suliman’s (Haitham Omari) second wedding to a much younger woman. Adding to the tension is Jalila’s discovery of her 18-year-old daughter Layla’s (Lamis Ammar) secret relationship with a boy from her university; a relationship that is strictly forbidden and would bring shame on the family.

Sandstorm is a film of intense emotions as Jalila’s unequivocal love for her daughter and Layla’s feisty intelligence and the desire to live her own life on her own terms clash head-on, with both resigned to the fate the beckons them within the confines of the strict and indissoluble customs of their tribe. Blal-Asfour and Ammar imbue their performances with equal parts ferociousness, tenderness, honesty and slight humour in the face of oppressive adversity as mother and daughter come to understand each other’s point of view.

Omari’s Suleiman is torn between these two women he clearly loves in his own way – that he allows his daughter to get an education, own a cell phone and teaches her to drive speaks volumes, yet he remains frustratingly unyielding in his conformity to tradition.

Certainly feminist in its outlook as it celebrates these women’s difficult lives in a culture that can be so alien and incomprehensible to us, Sandstorm is all the more resonant thanks to its understated method of storytelling as the film edges towards its bitter-sweet conclusion. Writer/director Elite Zexer is to be commended for expertly and authentically portraying the harsh realities faced by the protagonists. She has created a stirring piece of filmmaking, enhancing her well-judged story and superb performances with immaculately detailed and colourful production design that serves as the backdrop to the struggles of a people as they juggle tradition with the inexorable intrusion of an ever-changing world.

Tanna

(Islanders Section)

Forbidden love is also the issue at the heart of Tanna. As the cameras capture a peaceful verdant forest village on the island of Tanna, in the south of the Vanuatu’s archipelago, we are told that “since the beginning of time, the chiefs have arranged marriage along the Kastom Roads, but two lovers chose to walk a different path…”

The lovers in question are Wawa (Marie Wawa) and Dain (Mungau Dain), who run away when Wawa is promised as a bride to the son of a neighbouring tribal chief as part of a peace deal. This causes an even greater rift between the already warring tribes, and they hunt down the lovers, who are young and naïve, clearly, but fully aware of the implications their actions will have on their small community.

This has shades of Romeo and Juliet, certainly, but Tanna is much more than a simple star-crossed lovers-on-the-run story. Based on a true incident that rocked the tribe many years ago, the film was shot entirely on location on the island and performed by members of the Yakel tribe.

Directors Bentley Dean and Martin Butler spent months living with the tribe and making the film with their complete collaboration, the script coming together from the stories told by the community. The cast, most of whom have never left Tanna and lead a completely traditional life, were all new to this acting lark, and play out their roles with no inhibitions getting in the way, the simplicity and honesty of their performances substantially augmenting the poignancy of many moments and uninhibited joy of others.

Bentley, who also serves as cinematographer, captures the stunning beauty of the lush forests, sunny azure beaches and black volcanic rock – the volcano is almost a character in its own right – that make up this landscape untouched by the modern world, as its people struggle to maintain its centuries-old traditions while coming to terms with the universal tenet that love cannot be controlled.