POLITICAL FICTION

À VOIX BASSE

2025 / 113 min / color

Directed by Tunisian filmmaker Leyla Bouzid, the film follows Lilia, a woman in her thirties who returns to her hometown of Sousse for the funeral of a beloved uncle. After living in Paris for many years, she’s thoroughly estranged from her conservative family’s world – particularly when it comes to her secret relationship with her partner, Alice. To avoid a scandal, Lilia hides her girlfriend in a nearby hotel, but the period of mourning soon shifts from a time of shared prayers, meetings and grieving into an unearthing of uncomfortable, long-buried secrets. These secrets are entangled with the mysterious death of a man who had once been close to Lilia. At the heart of the narrative is the fragile, tense relationship between the protagonist and her mother (a superbly nuanced performance by legendary Palestinian actress Hiam Abbass), a woman torn between maternal love and rigid traditional values. Blending an intimate family drama with a detective-story twist, Bouzid offers a poignant exploration of silence and repression in Tunisian society, where homosexuality remains a crime.