Doha Film Institute
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As his mother fades into Alzheimer’s, a filmmaker revisits his fractured parents’ love—a fierce actress and a fearless actor—uncovering a past where art meant survival, love was truth, and memory is the stage of their story.
This film is about a son—a filmmaker, me—who decides to tell the story of his parents, two icons of the Tunisian artistic scene: Souad Mahassen, luminous actress and singer, and Lamine Nahdi, fearless actor and outspoken voice under dictatorship. Through archival material, reenactments, and personal reflections, ‘Souad And Lamine’ explores their passionate love, their shared life on stage, their separation, and the artistic legacy they each forged.

As my mother’s memory fades under the shadow of Alzheimer’s, only one figure remains intact in her mind: Lamine. He returns, no longer as a partner on stage, but as the guardian of their story. Between reality and fiction, memory and forgetting, light and shadow, the film becomes a final act—intimate, fragile, and luminous. In telling their story, I confront my own: a quest for truth, a tribute to resilience, and a meditation on memory, identity, and the power of art to defy time.

Credits

Director
Mohamed Ali Nahdi
Screenwriter
Mohamed Ali Nahdi
Producer
Melik Kochbati
Production Company
Paprika Films

About the Director

Mohamed Ali Nahdi
Mohamed Ali Nahdi is a Tunisian actor and director passionate about imagery and filmmaking. In 2008, he directed his first short film, ‘The Project’, which participated in several national and international festivals (including Clermont-Ferrand) and won numerous awards, including the Golden Falcon at the Arab Film Festival in Rotterdam and the Premio Filmo at the African, Asian, and Latin American
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