Introduced by Rabih El-Khoury, SAFAR Film Festival curator and followed by an online Q&A with director Selma Baccar.

A pioneering film from Tunisia, Fatma 75 is the first non-fiction film by a Tunisian woman, a feminist essay film, and the first in a series of powerful films about strong female figures in the country. The film was made in the UN International Women's Year 1975, and has long been recognised as one of the most important films from North Africa, but was rarely seen due to censorship. The film was recently restored by Africa In Motion as part of their Africa’s Lost Classics programme.

University student Fatma embarks on a historical feminist journey, conducting interviews with iconic women from various eras. She engages with aristocratic women from ancient times and contemporary revolutionaries involved in the struggle for Tunisian independence. The primary focus is on the period from the 1930s to the 1950s, when Tunisian women were increasingly struggling for emancipation and the controversial Personal Status Law was passed, which aimed at the institutionalized equality of women and men.

The innovative style of docu-fiction allows director Selma Baccar to present a fictional narrative element interspersed with actual interview footage, re-enactments of historical circumstances, and archival material. Didactic and instructive in its tone, the film has gained mythical status, certainly aided by its rarity and previous unavailability for screenings due to censorship.