Aicha

Mehdi M. Barsaoui's 2025 Tunisian film follows Aya, thirty, living in Tozeur in the south of the country. She works at a hotel, is caught between the expectations of her family and her surroundings, and has no means of changing her life. Then an accident changes everything. The idea is that disappearing can be an opportunity. Nobody knows Aya is alive; that gap gives her the chance to be someone else, and the narrative follows how long it can be sustained. Barsaoui had looked at Tunisian society through an individual crisis in his previous film too. Fatma Sfar leads and is in nearly every scene. The second half approaches a crime plot and the pace rises. Who it's for: those who like contemporary Tunisian cinema and dramas about identity. Who it's not for: viewers expecting a comforting close; the film shows the cost of the choice in full.