Tlamess

Ein Soldat, der mit seiner Truppe in der tunesischen Wüste nicht näher definierte Terroristen bekämpft, nutzt einen Heimaturlaub zur Desertion. Doch die Militärpolizei stöbert ihn auf. Auf seiner Flucht entführt er eine junge Frau, die von ihrem reichen Mann schwanger, aber darüber offenbar nicht sehr glücklich ist. Gemeinsam leben die Verfemten nun in einer Art Bunker im Wald und formen eine ungewöhnliche Gemeinschaft – ohne Worte, nur mit Blicken. TLAMESS ist eine Art Komplementärfilm zu und eine visuell beeindruckende Weiterentwicklung von Slims vorangegangener Arbeit AKHER WAHED FINA. (Andreas Ungerböck)

In Anwesenheit von Ala Eddine Slim.

The woods have always been a place beyond society. Even in times of their exploitation and cultivation, they remain an uncertainty, containing nightmares, myths, and fairy tales. Whoever comes from the woods returns. But to where? In his most dystopian work to date, Ala Eddine Slim shows an escape to the forest. Despite its dark colour palette reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy’s worlds and a score evoking nocturnal ghosts by “Oiseaux-Tempête”, a utopia lurks in the dimness beneath the trees. A utopia as a form togetherness far from modern society, a sort of symbiosis with nature. S, a soldier who has deserted, meets F, a pregnant woman who leaves her husband and wealthy life. Slim is just as interested in their meeting as why both of them escaped. He shows people being sick of their lives, a tiredness, a fragility. It is in an almost magical or at least Kubrickian forest with metaphorical snakes and black portals in which wordless communication takes place that shows how the woods are not only a place of uncertainty and fear, but also of resistance and the creation of new life. In other words: It’s where we came from. In this sense, the film is a true origin story. (Patrick Holzapfel)

In the presence of Ala Eddine Slim.