Snow-covered Park City feels a world away from Tunis, where Amel Gelati “Where the Wind Come From” made its feature debut playing Sundance as part of the World Cinema Dramatic Competition strand. This real-life journey somewhat echoes the film’s main characters, Elisa (Eya Bellagh) and Mehdi (Slim Bakar), who embark on an eventful road trip to create an artist competition that requires them to leave their home. Promises a country for life in Europe.
speaking specifically with DiversityThe photographer-turned-filmmaker says Sundance was always his “dream” festival. “When I see the Sundance laurels on a movie poster I know I’m going to love the movie, so when I walked in I couldn’t believe it.” The premiere has an added layer of excitement for Guletti: It’s the first time its lead actor will be seeing snow. “They’re almost as excited,” she says jokingly.
The story focuses on a girl and a boy who grow up as best friends, without surrendering to their friends’ and families’ expectations of romance. This was Guletti’s first time working on her short films, “Black Mamba” and “Chitana”. “I really wanted to tell a story about friendship between a boy and a girl. I thought it was such a normal relationship in my life,” she says.
“From my teens to my early 20s, I was always surrounded by boys,” the director continued. “I developed an emotional connection with them and people asked me: Why don’t you date? Even my parents asked if my friends were my boyfriends and I never thought it was weird. Those friends were there for me and, perhaps because men don’t talk to each other, found it easier to open up to a close girlfriend. ,
In “Where the Wind Comes From,” Guletti set out to represent a relationship he previously “hadn’t seen enough in the cinema,” where you have “this intense, intimate connection that’s never sexual. ” Another key element for the filmmaker was to honor Tunisian youth, which he feels is one of the “most interesting in the world”.
“I love this part of life. In your 20s, you feel like you can change the world, while in your 30s, it feels more and more as if you can’t do anything. Tunisian youth is very interesting—it’s rooted in Arab and Muslim cultures, but also open-minded, so it’s a complex opposition. They love art, they are the ones who made the revolution 10 years ago,” she says.
However, what saddened the director is that every time she spoke to someone in her 20s, from whatever background, she said that “her dream is to leave her country for the country of Tunisia”. “They feel like there is no hope and that they can’t make any kind of future here. It’s terrible to see a young man so full of life and so depressed at the same time. ,
Still, she did not want her feature debut to be a “dark drama” because whenever she looked around she saw people who were “bright and funny”. To capture that, Guletti decided she would make her film a comedy and play with elements of the genre – including sparse surrealist interludes throughout the film.
“It’s something really personal because I use my imagination to escape anxiety and stress,” she says of the inspiration for these visuals. “I have a different kind of imagination, less poetic, but I wanted this element to be present in my film because I always think that imagination is something everyone has, to one degree or another. It’s another link between the two characters, their imagination, it adds another layer to their friendship. ,
This playfulness with form and narrative, Guletti says, defies Western audiences’ expectations of what a Tunisian film should look like. “People want to see belly dancing and mosques in our films. I was in Rome with one of my shorts and an audience member told me my film didn’t look Tunisian. What does that even mean? What is a Tunisian film? What is an Italian, or a French film? It doesn’t mean anything. Some people prefer Orientalism and see women as struggling and oppressed. It’s the cliche the world loves. I wanted to do the opposite. I have a very strong woman and a more sensitive man. ,
Of the current moment in Tunisian cinema, especially after Kouther Ben Hania’s history-making Oscar nomination last year for “Four Daughters”—becoming the first Arab woman to be nominated for an Oscar twice—Guleti says that She feels “immense pride”.
“There is a new wave of directors and I admire them all,” she says. “Every year we have a film in Berlin or Cannes. When I went to Sundance, I felt like I joined them and was very proud. We are telling our stories from our own perspective, moving away from Orientalist expectations. We are not just making Arab films anymore. I am proud of this new generation and am part of it. ,
