Between Memory and Reality

In films such as La Belle et la Meute, The Man Who Sold His Skin, and Four Daughters (the latter two nominated for an Oscar), she threads memory, testimony, and imaginative re-creation into narratives that probe systems of power — from gender-based violence to the politics of borders and the fragile bonds within families marked by social and ideological pressures.

This exploration reaches a new intensity in her most recent film, The Voice of Hind Rajab. Awarded the Silver Lion in Venice, the film has stirred profound critical and emotional reactions to its portrayal of the final hours in the life of a Palestinian girl trapped under siege in Gaza. As in Four Daughters, Ben Hania blurs the line between memory and staged reality, crafting a hybrid docu-fiction form that confronts vulnerability, institutional failure, and the imperative to bear witness to what is happening around us.

Positioned between cultures, and as a female director from the Arab world educated in Tunis and Paris, Ben Hania occupies a rare and essential space. Her films challenge dominant narratives about the Arab world while expanding the expressive possibilities of the intersection between fiction and reality.