arab filmweek - fiction and documentary films of the Arab world

Le Chant des Mariées – Wedding Song
Director: Karin Albou
France/ Tunisia 2008 feature film 100 min
 
Tunis in 1942 during the German occupation. Two teens, Jewish Myriam and Muslim Nour, have been close friends since childhood. They live in the same house in a moderate Jewish-Islamic quarter and share the same girls’ dreams. While Nour regrets not being able to attend school, Myriam is daydreaming about love, and she envies Nour's liaison with her cousin. Life changes radically due to the presence of German troops in Tunis. Nour's wedding is held up because her betrothed, Khaled, can not find work – which he finally accepts at the German occupying forces. Adopting the Vichy regime's policy, the German army demands reparation payments from the Tunisian Jews. To be able to pay the required amount Myriam's mother promises Myriam’s hand to a wealthy and much older doctor. Myriam finds her dreams of love fading away…
 
As she already did in La Petite Jerusalem (2007), Karin Albou describes with Le Chant des Mariées vividly the situation of Sephardic-Jewish women amidst politic-religious struggles.