Four Daughters (2023 film)

Four Daughters (بنات ألفة, Les Filles d'Olfa) is a 2023 Arabic-language documentary film directed by Kaouther Ben Hania. After two daughters of a Tunisian mother disappeared, the filmmaker invites professional actresses to compensate for the loss. The film is an international co-production between France, Tunisia, Germany and Saudi Arabia.

The film competed for the Palme d'Or at the 76th Cannes Film Festival, where it had its world premiere on 19 May 2023. It was released in France on 5 July 2023. It was selected as the Tunisian entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards and was nominated for Best Documentary Feature.

Premise
Olfa is the mother of four daughters in Tunisia. One day her two older daughters disappear. To fill the void left, film director Kaouther Ben Hania invites professional actresses and brings the viewer closer to the life stories of Olfa and her daughters. The film mixes documentary and fiction.

Cast

 * Hend Sabri as Olfa
 * Olfa Hamrouni
 * Eya Chikhaoui
 * Tayssir Chikhaoui
 * Nour Karoui as Rahma Chikhaoui
 * Ichraq Matar as Ghofrane Chikhaoui
 * Majd Mastoura

Background
Tunisian Olfa Hamrouni rose to international prominence in April 2016 when she publicized the radicalization of her two teenage daughters, Rahma and Ghofrane Chikhaoui. Both teenagers had left Tunisia to fight alongside the Islamic State (IS) in Libya. Hamrouni publicly criticized the Tunisian authorities for not preventing her daughter Rahma from leaving the country. After the arrest of the two women by Libyan forces, the authorities again did not react. Hamrouni is also said to have been prevented from leaving the country in order to look for her daughters in Libya on her own.

Production
The film is produced by Nadim Cheikhrouha at Paris-based Tanit Films; Habib Attia at Tunis-based Cinétéléfilms; Thanassis Karathanos and Martin Hampel at Berlin-based Twenty Twenty Vision Filmproduktion GmbH; and co-produced by Red Sea Film Festival Foundation, ZDF/ARTE, and Jour2Fête.

Release
Four Daughters was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, where it had its world premiere on 19 May 2023. This is the second participation of a Tunisian production in the Cannes main competition since Abdellatif Ben Ammar's feature film A Simple Story in 1970. The film was theatrically released in France by Jour2Fête on 5 July 2023. It was released in Tunisia on 20 September 2023 by Hakka Distribution. It was also invited at the 28th Busan International Film Festival in 'Documentary Showcase' section and will be screened in October 2023.

Kino Lorber gave the film a limited theatrical release in the United States on 27 October 2023.

Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 96% based on 79 reviews, with an average rating of 8.1/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "Four Daughters' unique approach to documenting real-life horror is a formal gamble that only underscores the bravery and resilience of its subjects." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 80 out of 100, based on 21 critic reviews, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. Four Daughters received an average rating of 3.7 out of 5 stars on the French website AlloCiné, based on 28 reviews.