French-Tunisian director Erige Sehiri opened the Un Certain Regard section in the 78th Cannes Film Festival with her second fiction feature film Promised Sky [+lee también:
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Cineuropa: What drew you to the subject of this film, which focuses on three sub-Saharan women in Tunis?
Erige Sehiri: In 2016, I’d worked on a documentary about sub-Saharan students in Tunisia and I’d seen that they’d created their own community, like all migrant groups do in different countries. What was interesting was that Tunisia - which is a country of people who usually migrate abroad - suddenly became a destination for migrants. I started to dig deeper into the subject and found that 80% of African migrants move to a different part of Africa and 20% go to Europe. Another crucial factor was that Tunisians always talk about these migrants as Africans, as if they weren’t African themselves. So I took an interest in that identity and the question of how African Tunisia actually is. And then a journalist from Ivory Coast who I grew quite close to, revealed that she had a second job as a pastor, a female pastor in Tunisia: I thought that was fascinating, and that’s how I started to think about the story in the film. But I very quickly realised that I wanted to make an ensemble film, because these woman are in Tunisia for different reasons. So I decided to focus on women from different environments.

In the film we hear that: "Women are taking the initiative in 2024". How feminist a work were you looking to create?
In films, the issue of migration is almost always explored from a male viewpoint, whereas what I noticed in Tunisia was that a lot of women also bear this burden. And as the character of Marie is a pastor who draws women towards her, it was quite natural that the film became a film about women. But I didn’t have any feminist intentions to begin with.

The development of a sense of awareness is central to the film, in terms of the audience and the general context, and in terms of each of the three female protagonists vis-a-vis the limitations of their individual situations? How did you develop that side of things without being too didactic?
I work on instinct quite a lot. I take huge liberties with the screenplay because I find they can sometimes be a bit too didactic. In this instance, I had to immerse myself in these women’s lives, remind myself of all the research I’d carried out, create scenes about moments in their lives. I was also really interested in solidarity and individuality, because this isn’t a film about some strong sorority, women who’ll be together against all odds. Marie creates a momentum of solidarity through her church, but the precariousness of their situations brings out their individuality. Even solidarity can have its limits because they’re prevented from moving forwards. It’s also as if they were holding themselves back from being close to one another, from getting attached to the child, because they don’t know what tomorrow will bring.

The film touches upon some very moving themes, but you’re careful to avoid excessive sentimentalism.
Like in my previous film, I try to be modest in my approach, to listen to my actors and to the real-life people who will breathe life into the film. It leads to a more accurate depiction, I find, because you’re always aware of the environment and the reality which inspired you to make the film. I don’t do it to create screenplay or narrative devices, I do it to be more immersed in the everyday, because in everyday life we hide things, we don’t tell people everything, we don’t show everything.

You also convey a political message, obviously, which is serious but never heavy-handed.
It’s not a film for people to escape real life, it’s very clear on that point. But when you’re up close with the characters, they’re not heavy-going: they keep on living, in spite of everything. That’s what lifts me. There were already discussions taking place in Tunisia about migration when I was preparing the film shoot, so the film wasn’t an immediate response to that, but it did become a kind of response, in a certain sense. But it’s because it came from a desire to tell these women’s stories rather than being an ideological response that the film didn’t slide into something heavy, a piece of discourse, or become too sentimental or tragic.