Aya, in her late twenties, still lives with her parents in southern Tunisia and feels trapped in a life without prospects. One day, the minivan crashes in which she commutes daily between her town and the hotel where she works. As the sole survivor of the accident, she realizes it could be her chance to start a new life. She flees to Tunis under a new identity, but everything is soon compromised when she becomes the main witness to a police blunder.

“(…) it’s sad to say that we are still far away from true equality, particularly in terms of male-women relationships. The world is still skewed in favour of men, and global domestic violence figures are appalling. In Mehdi Barsaoui’s latest film, AICHA, we see the effects of such gender disparity, in this case in Tunisia, and the danger this puts women in.” (Film Obssesive)

Mehdi M. Barsaoui, born in Tunis/Tunisia in 1984, studied at the University of Arts in Tunis and then successfully completed a degree in film directing at the University of Bologna in Italy. One of his short films, WE’RE JUST FINE LIKE THIS, won the “Golden Muhr” for Best Film at the 2016 Dubai Film Festival. His feature film debut, A SON, premiered at the 2019 Venice International Film Festival, where it won two awards. It was also the first Tunisian film to win a César, the French film award. AICHA is his second feature film.

Filmography: 2010 SIDEWAYS, 2013 BOBBY, 2016 WE’RE JUST FINE LIKE THIS (all short films), 2019 A SON, 2024 AICHA