06/12/2024 - Manele Labidi delivers a bitter-sweet family chronicle daringly venturing into fantasy film, exploring exile and identity with insolent tenderness

Acclaimed in 2019 for her debut feature film Arab Blues [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Manele Labidi
film profile], which met with great success with critics and audiences alike and was carried by the charismatic actress Golshifteh Farahani, French-Tunisian director Manele Labidi is back with her second feature film, Queen Mom [+see also:
interview: Manele Labidi
film profile], a charming family dramedy exploring complex issues around exile, immigration and integration. The film was presented in the closing slot of Cinemamed following its premiere at the Saint-Jean-de-Luz International Film Festival.

"Do you know who I am? The daughter of a farmer who thinks she’s the Queen of England." Amel (Camélia Jordana) and Amor (Sofiane Zermani) love each other but they bicker constantly. She’s Tunisian, he’s Algerian, and both have left their home countries to settle in France and start a family. Amel feels nostalgic, while Amor weighs up - with a certain amount of self-deception - how lucky he is to be bringing up his two daughters in a clean and calm small town in the suburbs, where they’re enrolled in the Providence school, which is the best in the area. So when he learns that the lease on his apartment isn’t going to be renewed and it’s suggested that he move into social housing a 45-minute train journey away from the school, his heart skips a beat. Constantly in an uproar, Amel is angry about the social decline which led to her exile, an anger potentially amplified by the resilient character of her husband who works two jobs to sustain his family. The couple are walking a tightrope, but then their eldest daughter, Mouna (Rim Monfort) has a strange encounter in the school corridor with none other than Charles Martel (Damien Bonnard). This legendary figure in French history becomes a kind of imaginary friend for her - a wily, badly brought-up and abrupt friend, but a friend nevertheless, who strangely helps her to explore her fears and understand her identity.

The film unfolds in the early ‘90s when the Omar Raddad Affair and first Gulf War are all over the papers. Access to employment and housing policies are at the heart of Amel and Amor’s family life. What place is France prepared to offer or rather leave them? And what compromises will they need to make in order to accept it? While Amor tries to bring magic to their day-to-day lives, Amel deludes herself over a hypothetical return to her home country, which isn’t going to happen. Manele Labidi surprises the audience with her characterisation, specifically the way in which the anger shown by Amel - who’s far from the stereotypical image of a woman subjugated by her husband - echoes the supposed rage of the warrior Charles Martel. "What have you done, besides pushing back the Arabs in Poitiers in 732?" Mouna asks her new playmate. By using Charles Martel as a symbol, Manele Labidi deftly (and humorously) conveys the intergenerational trauma haunting the children of Maghrebi immigration in France.

Queen Mom was produced by Kazak Productions in France in co-production with Frakas Productions in Belgium. International sales are steered by Totem Films. The film is due for release in France and Belgium on 12 March, distributed by Diaphana and O’Brother Distribution respectively.

(Translated from French)