Released in 1990, Ferid Boughedir’s first feature, Halfaouine: Boy of the Terraces, is a pivotal work in Tunisian cinema that succeeds in incorporating an intimate story into a broader social perspective. The film follows the awakening of Noura, a boy on the threshold of adolescence, as he navigates the segregated worlds of men and women in the Halfaouine district of Tunis. Noura’s access to the women’s hammam becomes a powerful metaphor for the innocence of childhood and the regulation of adolescent desire. Initially welcomed alongside his mother into the hammam’s sensual realm, he is suddenly expelled once his gaze changes and his sexual awareness surfaces.

While engaging with the universal theme of puberty, Boughedir situates Noura’s story within the specific social codes of Tunisian society. The film’s fine humor, earthy sensuality, and observational detail are not mere embellishments but instruments of critique, exposing contradictions around gender, tradition, and authority in contemporary Tunisia and, by extension, the Arab world. — RACHID NAIM