Arash AziziErige Sehiri’s Promised Sky, which opened Cannes’ Un Certain Regard side-section this year, is based on a story with all the urgency and humanity perfect for cinematic treatment: the harassment of sub-Saharan African migrants in Tunisia which has made for bitter news headlines in recent years. But a good story doesn’t make a good film on its own. In fact, filmmakers with social agendas have a way of making terrible films. Thankfully, that’s not the case with the French-Tunisian Sehiri who has managed to make a dramatically astute and cinematically fresh film about a topic rife for melodramatic abuse.
The film revolves around the life of the community of Ivorian migrants in Tunisia. ‘Community’ is an apt word here and one that is used early in the film by Marie (Aissa Maiga,) a young woman who has been thrown by life into being an elder for her community. She is the lead pastor at a make-shift evangelical church and rents a beautiful house in which few young Ivorian women live. She is also something of a troubleshooter. Trouble arrives in the form of Kenza (Estelle Kenza Dogbo), a child of around 10 years old, who has survived the sinking of an European-bound migrant boat and has somehow ended at the church. Marie and her fellow Ivorians can’t figure out where she is from although some suspect Ivorian origins based on her accent. Marie suggests that maybe ‘the community’ can take of her instead of turning her into the Tunisian state.
Promised Sky is largely a portrayal of this community. This is an important choice since so many treatments of the migrants portrays them in an invidualistic ‘man against fate’ style. Community doesn’t mean parity and this is one with deep inequalities in fortune and status (some have student visas, some are paperless and everything in between) but they nevertheless form a community. When the Tunisian state, and a part of Tunisian society, start the ugly anti-migrant campaign that targets them, the Ivorians face it as a community; even if not always a united one.
The film doesn’t hug a plot tightly but it doesn’t aimlessly wander either. It follows its different characters as their lives intersects and diverges while never losing pace. There is Jolie, an engineering student, played ably by Laetitia Ky who we know from Disco Boy (2023)which played at Berlinale. An Ivorian artist mostly known for creating sculptures from her hair, Ky has now proven her talents on the screen and has had films at all top three European film festials (her Night of the Kings played in Venice 2020.) Hopefully this major presence at a Cannes film will open new vistas to her.
Then there is Naney (Debora Lobe Naney), roommate to Jolie but different from her in most ways. A sans-papier who has left her daughter back home, she is the ultimate hustler and helps bring verve and will to the film. Her monologue prayer at the church is amongst the film’s most memorable scenes.
The film’s major success is that it touches many sensitive topics without resorting to sensationalism for any of them. Think the touchy question of the relationship between the migrants and the Tunisian citizens, part of the broader ‘Arab-African relations’ theme. The film is centered around Ivorian lives and it takes a while for us to even realize it’s set in Tunisia. But the couple of Tunisian characters that do appear are portrayed humanly, in a ‘warts and all’ style, neither angelic nor demonic. Marie’s landlord, Ismael (Mohamed Grayaa), doesn’t go the extra mile to help her Ivorian tenants but doesn’t antagonize them either. He is shown with a cute cat pet, beloved by Marie and other women at the apartment. It makes a good contrast to the propaganda aired by anti-migrant forces which claim the sub-Saharan migrants are eating cats and dogs (where have you heard that one before?). In an appropriately subtle scene, he asks Marie if the cake she is making is “African.” Marie retorts: “Aren’t you an African too?,” taking down the fictious ‘Arab-African’ divide.
There is also Foued (Foued Zaazaa), Naney’s deadbeat boyfriend who provides her with companionship and partnership in her little schemes and scams – although isn’t of much use ultimately. Far from exoticized or cliché characters, these are all reminder of men and women we’ve probably met at some point our lives.
Actors sharing names with their characters suggests that some are probably playing parts not far from their real lives. Nevertheless, to its credit, the film doesn’t cosplay a verite documentary. Instead Sehiri’s film is a master class of how you can make a film about a news headline: put characters first, portray them fully and let them breathe on the screen. The rest will follow.
© 2020-2025. UniversalCinema Mag.
