19/07/2024 - Steered by La Luna Productions and APA, Lotfi Achour’s second feature will world-premiere in the Cineasti del Presente competition, with MPM Premium helming international sales

A well-known figure in the theatre world and acclaimed in the film universe for his various shorts (including Law of Lamb, which competed in Cannes in 2016) as well as his debut feature, Burning Hope [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (2016), Tunisian director Lotfi Achour is now set to present Red Path in the Cineasti del Presente competition, unspooling within the 77th Locarno Film Festival (running 7-17 August 2024 – see our article). The cast stars Ali Hleli, Yassine Samouni, Wided Dabebi, Younes Naouar, Latifa Gafsi, Salha Nasraoui, Jemii Lamari, Mounir Khazri, Noureddine Hamami, Eye Bouteraa and Rayen Karoui.

Based on real events and written by Natacha de Pontcharra in league with Doria Achour, Sylvain Cattenoy and Lotfi Achour himself, the story unfolds in November 2015 in the wilds of Mount Mghila, an extremely poor and isolated region in north-west Tunisia. When terrorists attack two very young shepherds, decapitating one of them, 13-year-old Achraf is forced to bring a gruesome message back to the family in the form of his cousin Nizar’s severed head. Traumatised and trying not to lose his mind, Achraf realises that his cousin’s ghost is now following him and that he seems determined to support him through his grief. But once confronted with the powerlessness of his elders who have been abandoned by the authorities, Achraf is torn between a desire to hold onto Nizar for a little longer and his duty to guide the men of his family into the mountain to help them retrieve Nizar’s body and give him a dignified burial…

Red Path is produced by Sébastien Hussenot on behalf of French firm La Luna Productions and by Anissa Daoud and Lotfi Achour on behalf of Tunisia’s APA: Artistes Producteurs Associés, in co-production with Belgium’s Versus Production and Poland’s Shipsboy, together with Sunnyland (belonging to the ART group), the Red Sea Fund, Proximus, Voo, Be tv and Fixafilm. The feature film also enjoys support from Eurimages, the Aide aux Cinémas du Monde fund (via the CNC and the Institut Français), the Polish Film Institute, the Tunisian National Film and Image Centre, the Wallonia-Brussels Film and Audiovisual Centre, the Île-de-France region, the French-Tunisian co-production fund, the Fonds Image de la Francophonie, the Swiss Confederation (Federal Department of Foreign Affairs - FDFA), the Doha Film Institute, the AFAC (Arab Fund For Arts and Culture) and Angoa.

Photography is entrusted to Poland’s Wojciech Staroń (notably awarded the Silver Bear in the 2011 Berlinale via The Prize [+see also:
trailer
film profile], and Diego Lerman’s partner in crime on his three most recent features). Distribution in French cinemas will be steered by Nour Films and international sales by MPM Premium.

(Translated from French)