Berlin Film Festival: From Tunis to Berlin, Leyla Bouzid’s Quiet Revolution in IN A WHISPER

Photo credit: Laurent Hou

With In a Whisper (À voix basse), selected as the only Arab film in the Official Competition of the Berlin LInternational Film Festival, Tunisian filmmaker Leyla Bouzid delivers her most intimate and assured work to date. Known for exploring the emotional fault lines between personal freedom and social expectation, Bouzid confirms here her position as one of the most distinctive voices of contemporary Arab cinema.

Set in Tunisia, the film follows Lilia, who returns from Paris for her uncle’s funeral and finds herself confronted with a family that knows little about the life she has built abroad. As relatives gather and old friendships resurface, buried tensions slowly emerge, turning a family reunion into a subtle investigation of memory, secrecy, and belonging. Blending the intimacy of domestic drama with the understated tension of a detective story, Bouzid crafts an intergenerational portrait shaped by love, silence, and emotional inheritance, carried by a powerful ensemble cast led by Hiam Abbass.

For Bouzid, silence itself becomes the film’s true subject. “The film is about what remains unspoken, taboos, silences, and family secrets that exist beneath the surface and yet affect everyone deeply,” she explains. Through whispers rather than confrontation, In a Whisper examines sexuality, generational trauma, and the fragile balance between individual desire and collective identity. 

At Berlinale, Bouzid’s presence marks more than a milestone for Arab cinema; it signals the evolution of a filmmaker whose gaze continues to grow sharper, more confident, and more fearless. In the conversation that follows, she reflects on breaking silence, portraying powerful women, and why, in her words, “things must eventually be said.”

What is the central theme of your film In a Whisper (À voix basse)?
Leyla Bouzid: The film is about what remains unspoken, taboos, silences, and family secrets that exist beneath the surface and yet affect everyone deeply. These unspoken truths create misunderstandings and emotional fractures. The title In a Whisper reflects this idea: things are first said quietly, almost invisibly, but over time they grow louder and impossible to ignore.

Do you see breaking silence as a form of personal liberation or political resistance?
Leyla Bouzid: I believe that things must eventually be said. Silence only makes problems worse, people feel everything, even when nothing is spoken. Not saying things creates tension and damage. We have to be ready to assume freedom, especially private freedom: the freedom to love whom we choose, to express ourselves without interference from society, the law, or the family. In that sense, secrets should not exist. There is also a layer of generational trauma in the film. In Tunisia, family is foundational; we are less individualistic than Western societies. I didn’t want to create a rupture between individual freedom and family life. Instead, I wanted to suggest that new forms of family can exist within the larger family structure, not against it.

Is the family structure in your film specifically matriarchal?
Leyla Bouzid: In this story, yes. I’m not representing all of Tunisia, only the family I chose to portray. Inside the house, power belongs to women; the outside world and the streets belong more to men. The grandmother decides everything. She rules with an iron fist, but in a very feminine way, adapting, negotiating, evolving. I wanted to show powerful women, not victims. This kind of matriarchal structure exists and is very strong, yet we rarely see it portrayed on screen.

Is the house itself a character in the film?
Leyla Bouzid: I think the house is actually the main character. The grandmother is deeply connected to it. I worked with the house through its memories, its souvenirs, its mental images, the layers of time it carries. When you enter a house where you lived as a child, especially one that hasn’t changed, you feel all those layers of time at once.

Visually, this was very important. With the cinematographer we often placed characters in shadow, backlit, with strong light outside and darkness inside. Over the course of the film, the windows slowly open and more light enters. The film begins quite dark and ends much brighter. The house is ambiguous, sometimes protective, sometimes oppressive, like a prison. It’s treated as something alive, organic.

And why did you choose to film in this specific location in Tunisia?
Leyla Bouzid: My grandmother’s house is in this city, and I wanted to connect the house to the city itself. It’s a touristic place by the sea, with Roman history and beautiful mosaics, yet its center has been neglected and partially destroyed. At the same time, the city is expanding through artificial tourist complexes. You find very conservative families living there, modern on the surface, yet intensely surveilling one another. Despite its size, it feels like a village. Architecturally, it has become a patchwork. It’s a city that is losing itself, which made it the perfect setting for this story.

Tell us about working with your lead actress, Hiam Abbass
Leyla Bouzid: I was incredibly lucky. She joined the film quite late, almost by chance. I met her at a festival while I was still searching for the actress to play the mother. Normally, I take a long time to cast actors, but with her, something instinctive happened. She was sitting next to me, and I simply asked if she would like the role, something I had never done before. She was extremely generous. She read the entire script, suggested lines for other characters, and worked closely with the actress playing her daughter. What I love most is her relationship to silence. Her silences are full, charged with emotion, contradiction, complexity. Her gaze is extraordinary. There is also a striking physical resemblance between her and the actress playing her daughter, which added another layer of truth.

Are you concerned about the film’s reception in the Middle East?
Leyla Bouzid: We plan to release the film in Tunisia at the end of April. For other Arab countries, I’m not sure yet. The film may be rejected or attacked, but I believe it’s time to show this kind of love and say clearly: it is simply love. Over the past few days in Berlin, I’ve seen how Arabic audiences and journalists respond to the film, it can be important. I tried to give these characters existence with honesty, without provocation. Some people will attack without seeing the film, but if art doesn’t disturb anyone, maybe it’s boring or misses the point. Art has the power to do this, and I accept that.

How do you see your growth as a filmmaker?
Leyla Bouzid: Being in official competition in Berlin is very strong for this film, it’s my first time in competition at a major festival. My first film was in Venice, my second in Critics’ Week in Cannes, and now Berlin. This recognition encourages me to continue making films in the way I believe in, with their own specificities. Filmmaking is research, you never know how a film will be received. This gives a bit of trust in a process that is never easy. I will continue on my path, even if it’s not always what people expect.

How has Berlin compared to festivals like Cannes or Venice?
Leyla Bouzid: It’s very different. Berlin is deeply focused on cinema, it’s less glamorous, more political, cooler. The projection quality was excellent, the film played well, and the experience is very specific. There are also polemics that are difficult to navigate, but I believe it’s important that our stories are present. Absence is not the solution. We should not marginalize ourselves as Arab filmmakers. 

As a woman director, do you feel better equipped to tell women’s stories?
Leyla Bouzid: My second film had a young man as the main character, and it was important to me that a woman could tell a man’s story. There are countless films by men about women, so the opposite should also be possible. That said, women of certain ages are rarely represented. In this film, I portray a grandmother, a mother, and an aunt. I film their faces, their wrinkles. It was very important to me to show elderly women with respect, sensuality, and beauty. Perhaps my gaze allows me to do that, but what matters is that these women exist fully on screen.

What are your thoughts on the rise of female directors in the Arab world?
Leyla Bouzid: Tunisia has a strong history of women filmmakers. The actress playing the grandmother is herself a veteran director. We also have figures like Moufida Tlatli and others who paved the way. What’s beautiful is that each filmmaker follows her own path, very different styles, very different films, reaching international audiences. But it’s still not enough. We haven’t even reached fifty percent. Centuries of women artists were erased from history. We have many stories to tell just to reach equality. So yes, it’s encouraging, but far from sufficient.

What themes will you explore next?
Leyla Bouzid: For the first time, I will adapt a book. I don’t want to say too much yet, but there will be many women in the film. Whether there will be many men, I’m not sure.

Finally, what is your relationship to art and provocation?
Leyla Bouzid: If art doesn’t disturb at all, maybe it’s boring or misses the point. Art has the power to unsettle, and that’s part of its role. I don’t expect anything else from my work.