Silences of the Palace
aka Les Silences du palais

Screening: 29 August, 6:30pm

Tunisia/France
1994

Director/Screenplay/Editor: Moufida Tlatli
Production co: Cinetelefilms & Magfilm, Mat Films
Producers: Ahmed Baha Eddine Attia, Richard Magnien
Cinematography: Youssef Ben Youssef
Production designer: Claude Bennys
Sound: Faouzi Thabet
Music: Anouar Brahem
Khedija: Amel Hedhili
Young Alia: Hend Sabri
Khalti Hadda: Najia Ouerghi
Adult Alia: Ghalia Lacroi
Sidi Ali: Kamel Fazaa
Lofti: Sami Bouajila
In Arabic and French with English subtitles
127 mins
DVD [Changed since programme printed]
M cert

The heroine of the story in my film, The Silences of the Palace, is a woman who, in our country, we sometimes called "the colonized of the colonized." A woman who was inferior due to her birth; a woman born to serve men. Alia was born in servitude. She's the daughter of one of the servants of the Bey's Palace, the last kings of Tunisia. It was the royal custom that women servants were not only there to serve, i.e. unconditional drudgery, but were also to submit to the princes' "rights in the bedchamber." The world of these Oriental princes the last to reign in Tunisia is seen through the eyes of a little girl from the kitchens of the Palace. A little girl who was pre-destined to inherit the slave condition of her mother, who was herself daughter and grand-daughter of servants, but will find the courage to refuse her destiny and break free from it.

Alia will search escape from her bondage by questioning her very being and delving deep into herself. Finally, she will seek a salvation through the beauty of her voice by singing. When she meets Lofti, a young militant hiding in the servants quarters of the Palace, he makes her aware of the importance of the Nationalistic movement, which is struggling for the independence of the country. Alia will identify with this struggle and hope to be freed from the prison that is her life. Will she succeed? I have tried to show a child's eye view of this world of Oriental princes, of the refinement and injustice which mixes the splendours of thousands of years of culture with decadence. The aspect that always hits me the most powerfully is the silence imposed on women in the Arab-Muslim world. They grow up living in doubt as to their own existence and their own past. Although the child's destiny is to follow her mother into slavery, I also wanted to show that women have within themselves the ability to break out of this condition.

Moufida Tlatli

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