The deserving winner of both the Best Actor and Best First Feature prizes at the Berlin Film Festival, Mohamed Ben Attia’s simple yet richly resonant film takes its title from its young Tunisian protagonist, a car salesman about to embark on a marriage that’s been arranged by his mother. But when Hedi (Majd Mastoura, giving a superbly understated performance) is sent by his likewise domineering boss to solicit sales in a town on the coast, he encounters and is drawn to Rim, an attractive tourist guide and entertainer at his hotel. Her free-spirited confidence is worlds away from his bride-to-be’s conventional modesty—and indeed very different from his own somewhat listless passivity. Freedom beckons, but the wedding is only one week away...

Succeeding both as a persuasively naturalistic account of a fraught personal dilemma and as a lightly handled metaphorical tale about Tunisia itself, torn as it is between tradition and modernity as it struggles with economic problems, this extremely fine debut heralds a write/director to watch.

Winner: Best First Feature, Best Actor, Berlin.