Satin Rouge

Director: Raja Amari    → show biography   ← hide biography

Biography: Raja Amari was born 1971 in Tunis (Tunesia). Between 1992 and 1994 she worked as a film critic for the Tunis-based magazine Cinecrits. In 1993 she completed her study of French Literature, with a concentration in Art History, at the University of Tunis. She studied at Paris' FEMIS film academy from 1994 to 1998. Her final thesis project for the Screenwriting De- partment was the screenplay for SATIN ROUGE for which she received summa cum laude honours.

Country: Tunisia

Year: 2002

Synopsis: Present day Tunis. As far as anyone is concerned, Lilia is a respectable woman and an attentive mother. She believes her daughter Salma is having an affair with Chokri, a musician in the Red Satin cabaret. Having suppressed her own desires, she’s unable to understand her daughter’s. To save her daughter from this “dangerous liason,“ Lilia goes to the cabaret. A new world opens up to her, a world repugnant yet at the same time tantalizing. A world of the night, dancing, blasé bar girls and pleasure- seeking men. Lilia can’t stop herself from returning and discovering, through dancing, those desires she has stifled during all those years of responsibility. Raja Amari: “Perhaps this film is about the flight of time, or perhaps about the changeable character of woman. Lilia discovers her body, that body she’s always buried under layers of shapeless clothes, that body she’s never shown any interest in. But through dancing, specifically in a cabaret, a place of exhibition par excellence, the change will occur. Chokri’s love will allow her to live a reality that she’s never experienced other than through procreation, indolently prostrate in front of the television. From this point Lilia only listens to her desire. This desire instigates the evolution of her character, and it’s only in recognizing defeat that she accepts her daughter’s marriage. Lilia settles down to normality, and this time ‘plays’ the role of a mother. This hypocrisy of character, which submits itself, fits in place with society’s hypocrisy.“

Language: Arabic

Forum participation year: 2002

Forum catalogue PDF: Download