Pan-Arab distributor Mad Solutions has picked up international rights to Tunisian auteur Ala Eddine Slim’s mystery drama “Agora” ahead of its world premiere in competition at the Locarno Film Festival.
The film revolves around three missing people who suddenly return to a remote town in Tunisia, prompting tensions within their families and community. A local police inspector named Fathi tries to unravel the mystery of their initial disappearance and unexpected return with the help of her friend Amine. Then, a second inspector arrives from the capital. The somewhat supernatural film’s events unfold as if they were taking place in the dreams of two animals – a blue dog and a black crow – as the director has put it in an interview with Variety.
Slim’s two previous works, both featuring minimal dialogue and atmospheric images, garnered significant critical acclaim: “The Last of Us” (2016) won the Lion of the Future Prize at Venice.
The film revolves around three missing people who suddenly return to a remote town in Tunisia, prompting tensions within their families and community. A local police inspector named Fathi tries to unravel the mystery of their initial disappearance and unexpected return with the help of her friend Amine. Then, a second inspector arrives from the capital. The somewhat supernatural film’s events unfold as if they were taking place in the dreams of two animals – a blue dog and a black crow – as the director has put it in an interview with Variety.
Slim’s two previous works, both featuring minimal dialogue and atmospheric images, garnered significant critical acclaim: “The Last of Us” (2016) won the Lion of the Future Prize at Venice.
- 8/6/2024
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Switzerland’s Locarno Film Festival will debut 17 world premieres, including new works by Hong Sang-soo and Wang Bing, as part of its 2024 competition program. This year’s event runs from August 7 – 17.
The festival announced its competition lineups this morning. The Hong Sang-soo feature is titled Suyoocheon (By The Stream) and stars Kim Minhee, Kwon Haehyo, and Cho Yunhee. The Wang Bing feature is a France, Luxembourg, and Netherlands co-production titled Hard Times. Scroll down to see the full Locarno competition lineup, which also includes new titles from Ben Rivers, Mar Coll, and Christoph Hochhäusler.
The festival today also announced that French acting veterans Mélanie Laurent and Guillaume Canet will receive the event’s honorary Excellence Award Davide Campari at the opening ceremony on August 7. Previous recipients of the award include Riz Ahmed and Aaron Taylor Johnson.
Locarno’s separate Piazza Grande lineup features 18 titles, including Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig,...
The festival announced its competition lineups this morning. The Hong Sang-soo feature is titled Suyoocheon (By The Stream) and stars Kim Minhee, Kwon Haehyo, and Cho Yunhee. The Wang Bing feature is a France, Luxembourg, and Netherlands co-production titled Hard Times. Scroll down to see the full Locarno competition lineup, which also includes new titles from Ben Rivers, Mar Coll, and Christoph Hochhäusler.
The festival today also announced that French acting veterans Mélanie Laurent and Guillaume Canet will receive the event’s honorary Excellence Award Davide Campari at the opening ceremony on August 7. Previous recipients of the award include Riz Ahmed and Aaron Taylor Johnson.
Locarno’s separate Piazza Grande lineup features 18 titles, including Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig,...
- 7/10/2024
- by Zac Ntim
- Deadline Film + TV
Stars: Hela Ayed, Yassmine Dimassi, Aziz Jabali, Bilel Slatnia | Written and Directed by Abdelhamid Bouchnak
The feature debut of writer-director Abdelhamid Bouchnak, Dachra is a Tunisian folk horror that has broken box-office records in its native North Africa. Impressively acted and chillingly atmospheric, it represents a formidable calling card.
Yassmine Dimassi, Aziz Jabali and Bilel Slatnia play Yasmine, Walid and Bilel, three journalism students who are tasked with reporting an exclusive story. When they hear rumours of a woman called Mongia (Hela Ayed), who was found mutilated 25 years ago and locked away in an asylum, they decide to investigate her story, but an interview in her cell doesn’t go as planned. Adopting a different tack, they travel to the spot where she was supposedly found and encounter an isolated country village, full of silent women and a suspiciously large amount of meat. Encouraged to stay overnight by a jovial,...
The feature debut of writer-director Abdelhamid Bouchnak, Dachra is a Tunisian folk horror that has broken box-office records in its native North Africa. Impressively acted and chillingly atmospheric, it represents a formidable calling card.
Yassmine Dimassi, Aziz Jabali and Bilel Slatnia play Yasmine, Walid and Bilel, three journalism students who are tasked with reporting an exclusive story. When they hear rumours of a woman called Mongia (Hela Ayed), who was found mutilated 25 years ago and locked away in an asylum, they decide to investigate her story, but an interview in her cell doesn’t go as planned. Adopting a different tack, they travel to the spot where she was supposedly found and encounter an isolated country village, full of silent women and a suspiciously large amount of meat. Encouraged to stay overnight by a jovial,...
- 7/8/2021
- by Matthew Turner
- Nerdly
Yassmine (Yassmine Dimassi), Bilel (Bilel Slatnia) and Walid (Aziz Jebali) are journalism students planning a documentary as a class project. One of them suggests that he can use his contacts to get them into a local psychiatric hospital, where one of the inmates is said to be a witch. They don't take witchcraft seriously (though many people in their native Tunisia do), but they're interested in exploring the subject of belief. In due course this leads them into the woods and to a lonely village where everything they believe is turned on its head.
This may sound like familiar territory, but the magic is in the execution. There's a scene early on in which the three argue as they drive to the hospital. We look at the across the bonnet of the car they are in, which evidently hasn't been cleaned for a long time. When the next shot reveals a.
This may sound like familiar territory, but the magic is in the execution. There's a scene early on in which the three argue as they drive to the hospital. We look at the across the bonnet of the car they are in, which evidently hasn't been cleaned for a long time. When the next shot reveals a.
- 7/6/2021
- by Jennie Kermode
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
New Poster for Dachra: "Grisly, frightening, and stuffed with howling thrills, the new Tunisian horror film Dachra won over both Frightfest and the Venice Film Festival and is finally making its stateside debut. Equal parts Midsommar and The Blair Witch Project, Dachra begins with a simple classroom assignment and spins through double plot twists into high-tension cannibal sorcery.
Sent off with a documentary video assignment, three journalism students decide to interview Mongia, seeking new clues about the cold case. Intrigued and perturbed by the deranged woman’s story, the trio take their camera to the scene of the crime deep in the woods, led by the headstrong young investigator Yassmine (scream queen par excellence Yassmine Dimassi).
Soon they are welcomed to a secluded, hushed village where goats have free rein and raw meat hangs drying in the wind. Captured with a minimalist color palette in Hatem Nechi’s eerie...
Sent off with a documentary video assignment, three journalism students decide to interview Mongia, seeking new clues about the cold case. Intrigued and perturbed by the deranged woman’s story, the trio take their camera to the scene of the crime deep in the woods, led by the headstrong young investigator Yassmine (scream queen par excellence Yassmine Dimassi).
Soon they are welcomed to a secluded, hushed village where goats have free rein and raw meat hangs drying in the wind. Captured with a minimalist color palette in Hatem Nechi’s eerie...
- 6/23/2021
- by Jonathan James
- DailyDead
Stars: Hela Ayed, Yassmine Dimassi, Aziz Jabali, Bilel Slatnia | Written and Directed by Abdelhamid Bouchnak
The feature debut of writer-director Abdelhamid Bouchnak, Dachra is a Tunisian folk horror that has broken box-office records in its native North Africa. Impressively acted and chillingly atmospheric, it represents a formidable calling card.
Yassmine Dimassi, Aziz Jabali and Bilel Slatnia play Yasmine, Walid and Bilel, three journalism students who are tasked with reporting an exclusive story. When they hear rumours of a woman called Mongia (Hela Ayed), who was found mutilated 25 years ago and locked away in an asylum, they decide to investigate her story, but an interview in her cell doesn’t go as planned. Adopting a different tack, they travel to the spot where she was supposedly found and encounter an isolated country village, full of silent women and a suspiciously large amount of meat. Encouraged to stay overnight by a jovial,...
The feature debut of writer-director Abdelhamid Bouchnak, Dachra is a Tunisian folk horror that has broken box-office records in its native North Africa. Impressively acted and chillingly atmospheric, it represents a formidable calling card.
Yassmine Dimassi, Aziz Jabali and Bilel Slatnia play Yasmine, Walid and Bilel, three journalism students who are tasked with reporting an exclusive story. When they hear rumours of a woman called Mongia (Hela Ayed), who was found mutilated 25 years ago and locked away in an asylum, they decide to investigate her story, but an interview in her cell doesn’t go as planned. Adopting a different tack, they travel to the spot where she was supposedly found and encounter an isolated country village, full of silent women and a suspiciously large amount of meat. Encouraged to stay overnight by a jovial,...
- 8/23/2019
- by Matthew Turner
- Nerdly
Daily Dead was proud to once again sponsor and experience this year's Overlook Film Festival, which took place in the historic (and quite possibly haunted) confines of New Orleans. And with another year of immersive events, essential screenings, and live performances in the books, the Overlook Film Festival's 2019 audience and juried awards have been announced, and we've been provided with the full list to share with Daily Dead readers.
Press Release: - The Overlook Film Festival 2019 has come to an end on Sunday, June 2nd after bringing four days of horror films, immersive games, Vr exhibitions, panels and workshops in New Orleans. The festival reached an audience of over 3000 people and hosted over 60 filmmakers, actors, and producers including Elijah Wood, Robert Rodriguez, Mick Garris, Chelsea Stardust, and Paul Scheer over the weekend.
The Overlook Features Jury; Rolling Stone’s Film/TV editor David Fear; writer, director and fashion photographer Carter Smith...
Press Release: - The Overlook Film Festival 2019 has come to an end on Sunday, June 2nd after bringing four days of horror films, immersive games, Vr exhibitions, panels and workshops in New Orleans. The festival reached an audience of over 3000 people and hosted over 60 filmmakers, actors, and producers including Elijah Wood, Robert Rodriguez, Mick Garris, Chelsea Stardust, and Paul Scheer over the weekend.
The Overlook Features Jury; Rolling Stone’s Film/TV editor David Fear; writer, director and fashion photographer Carter Smith...
- 6/5/2019
- by Derek Anderson
- DailyDead
Jim Jarmusch’s zombie pic The Dead Don’t Die, which will open the Cannes Film Festival next month, is set to make its U.S. premiere at the Overlook Film Festival, which kicks off May 30 and continues through June 2 in New Orleans. The news was announced today when the horror-centric fest unveiled third festival lineup.
In addition to the 41 films, the fest will feature television presentations, immersive presentations, virtual reality, interactive events, and live performances. This includes their closing night film The Lodge, a sneak preview of the forthcoming Universal Pictures horror Ma starring Octavia Spencer and a screening of DC Universe’s new series Swamp Thing. Robert Rodriguez will also be on hand to hold an educational master class on independent filmmaking before presenting his latest micro-budget independent effort Red 11 and a special screening of the ’90s sci-fi horror The Faculty.
“We’re so proud to unleash this terrifying lineup on audiences.
In addition to the 41 films, the fest will feature television presentations, immersive presentations, virtual reality, interactive events, and live performances. This includes their closing night film The Lodge, a sneak preview of the forthcoming Universal Pictures horror Ma starring Octavia Spencer and a screening of DC Universe’s new series Swamp Thing. Robert Rodriguez will also be on hand to hold an educational master class on independent filmmaking before presenting his latest micro-budget independent effort Red 11 and a special screening of the ’90s sci-fi horror The Faculty.
“We’re so proud to unleash this terrifying lineup on audiences.
- 4/26/2019
- by Dino-Ray Ramos
- Deadline Film + TV
After Jim Jarmusch’s zombie comedy “The Dead Don’t Die” enjoys a snazzy red carpet premiere as the opening night selection of the Cannes Film Festival, its next stop will bring it to diehard genre fans. The movie will make its U.S. premiere as the opening night selection of The Overlook Festival, the New Orleans horror film festival that returns to the French Quarter for the second time on May 30.
The Focus Features release finds Jarmusch bringing his distinctive deadpan approach to supernatural circumstances for the second time, following 2013’s wistful vampire tale “Only Lovers Left Alive.” For “The Dead Don’t Die,” the auteur mainstay appears to be tipping his hat to George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead,” with the tale of small town characters facing the sudden threat of the undead. The cast includes Adam Driver and Bill Murray as police officers alongside Tilda Swinton...
The Focus Features release finds Jarmusch bringing his distinctive deadpan approach to supernatural circumstances for the second time, following 2013’s wistful vampire tale “Only Lovers Left Alive.” For “The Dead Don’t Die,” the auteur mainstay appears to be tipping his hat to George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead,” with the tale of small town characters facing the sudden threat of the undead. The cast includes Adam Driver and Bill Murray as police officers alongside Tilda Swinton...
- 4/26/2019
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
The North African nation of Tunisia finally makes its entrance onto the world genre film scene with Abdelhamid Bouchnak's moody chiller, Dachra. Borrowing liberally from cinematic folk horror traditions, Dachra takes on a not entirely unfamilar journey into a heart of rural darkness with a unique setting that will leave fans of oddball horror from far off lands satisfied and eager to see more of this not often glimpsed corner of the world. The story begins with a university journalism class tasked with creating an exclusive report, our leads choose to explore an apocryphal story about an alleged witch who'd been found on the side of the road and shipped off to an asylum. One member of the group, Bilel (Bilel Slatnia), tells the group that...
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- 9/26/2018
- Screen Anarchy
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