Close-up: Erige Sehiri

Erige Sehiri (1982) is a Franco-Tunisian filmmaker and producer based in Tunis. In her films, she brings to light the lives of workers whose trajectories often remain unseen. A prominent figure of the new generation of Arab cinema, she will be at Bozar to accompany screenings of her films and discuss her filmmaking practice with audiences. 

After a career in journalism and television, she directed her first feature-lenght documentary, Railway Men (La Voie Normale), in 2018, focusing on Tunisian railway workers. She then turned to fiction with Under the Fig Trees (Sous les figues, 2022), presented at Directors’ Fortnight, followed by Promised the Sky (Promis le ciel, 2025), which was presented as the opening film of the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes and received several awards in Angoulême. 

Beyond her work as a filmmaker, Erige Sehiri is committed to freedom of expression and media literacy. She is also a founding member of the collective Rawiyat – Sisters in Film, which supports women filmmakers from Arab world and its diaspora.