31/05/2022 - CANNES 2022: The French-Tunisian director and producer breaks down several aspects of her beautiful and timeless narrative feature debut

(© Elise Ortiou Campion)

Erige Sehiri is a French-Tunisian director and producer. In 2018, she made her breakout feature-length documentary, Railway Men [+see also:
trailer
film profile]. Now, her narrative feature debut, Under the Fig Trees [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Erige Sehiri
film profile], has played in the Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.

Cineuropa: There was an article somewhere stating that it was a meeting with cherry picker Fidé Fdhili that led to you making Under the Fig Trees. Is that true?
Erige Sehiri: Even before meeting this beautiful girl, who would go on to become the lead actress in Under the Fig Trees, a lot of things were happening in this area and this region that were interesting for me. I was fascinated by these women, who get picked up and go to work on the back of a pickup truck. Very often, the news would talk about truck accidents happening on those journeys, on the badly maintained country roads. When I went with Fidé to the orchard, I didn't see what I was seeing in the media; it was so different. It was then that I imagined the film as if it could be their last day at work.

And why did this have to play out over one day and in one location?
Showing one day with different generations is like showing a lifetime. Also, I was supposed to make another film, so I had no budget for this one. I had to make whatever was possible and think about the cinematic approach at the same time, and what the situation could offer me. I liked the idea of adapting to nature and to the economy, and my desire to make this film changed because I met the right person.

The movie has a beautiful, timeless quality because the job of picking figs from trees doesn’t seem to have changed much. It’s still humans doing the work. Was that one of the appeals of telling this story?
I liked the idea that this place could be from 100 years ago – we don't know. There is no sign of modernity in nature; the sign of modernity is them, especially the young girls. It’s in the way they act, on their phones, the way they talk and what they are talking about. At the same time, they are suffocating. That's why I wanted to replicate that idea visually, by shooting the film using plenty of close-ups – it gives this sensation that it's a beautiful place, but also a place where these women have no opportunities in this modern world. And it’s not just the girls – even the boys are restricted.

It’s great the way you manage to speak about society in a film where much of what happens is people flirting. Was that your goal?
Of course, it's not a film solely about people flirting under the trees. The orchard becomes a place where young workers can find some freedom, maybe even love, and most of all be together, and all of this unfolds before the eyes of older workers who are watching the young generation, sometimes with a tender and nostalgic eye, at other times with a hint of bitterness. I find it beautiful that even in this place and in this society, where they feel imprisoned, they still find ways, especially the young women. And the young boys – and even more so the young women – find a space for freedom and a space for fun.

Why did you decide to only show the world of the fig trees where they work, and not the modern, urban landscape in Tunisia, where they are likely to live?
I wanted to stimulate the imagination of the audience as well. I didn't want to show everything. I wanted us to be attached to this character without knowing the background, leaving us to imagine the families of them all, and how they lived. I wanted to play with this. I knew from the start that there would be no life outside of the orchard.