Beauty and the Dogs

At a student party in Tunis, Mariam meets a mysterious man named Youssef. When they leave the party together, it is the start of a long night in which Mariam has to fight for her rights and dignity in a corrupt system.

In spite of the shock of the event, Mariam is determined to report her assailants to the police. But things are not made easy for her at all: emergency responders and civil servants respond indifferently and bog her down in the bureaucratic system. The authorities also persist in humiliating and belittling her even more. As the night progresses, the question arises of whether justice will prevail when it is on the side of the assailants. Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania shows the story in nine acts, in which she filmed each chapter in a single take. She based her film on the controversial true story that was published earlier in a book entitled Coupable d'être violée.

 

Beauty and the Dogs has been selected for the Camera Justitia competition and is part of the Second Sex theme programme.