‘The Rif Lover’ by Narjiss Nejjar

The film is based on Noufissa Sbaï’s novel with the same name in French. Narjiss Nejjar continues her mother aim and moves it from fiction to cinema contributing alongside her mother in the liberation movement of women from the cultural restriction and boundaries.

The film tells the story of a young and beautiful woman Aya (Nadia Kounda) who refused to give up her dreams against family orders and social norms. Aya longs to live a passionate love, yet she is confronted by a restricting reality and betrayed by her own kin.

Aya lives with her mother (Nadia Niazi) and two brothers Ahed (Fahd Benchemsi) and Hafid (Lotfi Omar) while her never-seen father is working in Spain as fisherman. To support the family the brothers work for a hashish trafficker, and, to gain more from the Baron, Ahed gives up his sister as an offering to the Baron to receive land instead. This action sets off turmoil between Hafid who objects his brother move and reminds him that honor is priceless.

Aya’s fantasized world that she shared with her best friend Radia (Ouidad Elma) collapses after she lost her virginity. Radia gets jealous of her friend and steal the barons money, and when he tries punish her, she attempts to suicide. The baron flees the country while Aya is indicted of trying to kill her friend.

The prison experience seems for Aya a more freer than the family house and despite her mother’s attempts to marry her, she refuses to give up her wishes and chooses to end her life because life for her is only what she dreamt of and desired for.

In this film, Narjiss Nejjar maintains her loyalty to her cause that she raises in almost all her movies which is women liberation from the patriarchal society that crashes women under a siege of restricting codes.

Director: Narjiss Nejjar

Cast: Nadia Kounda, Mourade Zeguendi, Ouidad Elma, Nadia Niazi, Fehd Benchemsi, Omar Lotfi 

Released: 2011