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SADOK ET SES FRÈRES

Documentary

Director
Oumaima TRABELSI
Tunisia

Synopsis

After twenty years spent in the Italian mafia networks, Sadok (59) and his brother Amor (57) are deported back to their hometown, Mohammedia, in Tunisia. There, they face the harsh reality they once fled. Their third brother, Karim, still lives in hiding in La Spezia, Italy.

The film unfolds between these two places: Mohammedia, where Sadok scrapes by as an illegal taxi driver and Amor struggles to survive as a factory worker; and La Spezia, where Karim caught in addiction, reveals the darker side of a long-idealized past.
This constant back-and-forth opens a crack toward a fantasized elsewhere: Italy. Through the intertwined paths of the three brothers, the film explores the scars of illegality, the weight of drug trafficking, and the brutal reckoning of a shared failure.

Intention Note

I’m from Mohammedia, a city I left, just like my cousins Sadok, Amor, and Karim, in search of a better future. This film grew out of a personal need to understand the story of these men who lived for years on the margins, and who were ultimately brought down by failure.

At first, I stayed in the background. I watched, I listened, to their contradictions, their confused and sometimes embellished stories. Gradually, I stepped in. Not to correct them, but to pick up the thread of their fragmented memory.

My point of view, as a younger woman, free to move, became the heart of the story. Between Mohammedia and La Spezia, I try to connect the pieces. Not to judge, not to rescue. Just to show what exile leaves behind: scars, silences, and a shared failure we don’t always dare to name.

About us

Les Ateliers de Grand-Bassam is brought to life by Grand-Bassam Project, a non-profit association that embodies excellence in the film and audiovisual industry. The association is an organization of filmmakers, producers and cultural industry professionals from Ivory Coast, the continent and beyond, who help incubate performing arts and audiovisual projects by applying alternative methods of management, production, marketing and distribution in countries across the continent.

Grand-Bassam Project’s main objective is to contribute to the emergence of a solid, internationally competitive African cultural industry, notably through the development of the performing arts and audiovisual sector, capable of contributing to improving the economic impact of culture and consolidating the employability of young people.

Specifically, the objectives of the Grand-Bassam Project are to :

– Implement and consolidate an incubator for cultural projects and professional training workshops for artists and producers from Ivory Coast and other countries on the continent.

– Contribute to the reappropriation by Ivorian cultural players of the conception and governance of cultural policies, in partnership with public decision-makers at national level.

– Contribute to the dissemination of cinematographic works from the continent Formalize and implement a strategy for the implementation of activities, a risk management plan, as well as a monitoring and evaluation plan for all actions.

– Produce and/or co-produce performing arts and audiovisual works and projects for dissemination on the continent and internationally.

– Intensify artistic education initiatives aimed at children, young people and the general public.

Grand-Bassam Project is in the process of launching its program of activities, which include training, production, distribution, image education and consulting for the first edition of the Ateliers de Grand-Bassam. In keeping with its management strategy, the company’s aim is to combine production activities with socio-educational initiatives.

By working closely with sister organizations in Ivory Coast who share the same passion, Grand-Bassam Project will contribute to the future of cinema in Côte d’Ivoire and beyond.

The association capitalizes on the experience acquired over the last ten years by the Ouaga Film Lab, and projects will be carried out with the expertise required to increase the competitiveness of Ivorian and African filmmakers on the world stage.