Movie · 2023 · Documentary, Drama · 1h 48m · NR · French
Curator score: 8.5/10 (33.4K ratings)
Overview
Between light and darkness stands Olfa, a Tunisian woman and the mother of four daughters. One day, her two older daughters disappear. To fill in their absence, the filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania invites professional actresses and invents a unique cinema experience that will lift the veil on Olfa and her daughters' life stories. An intimate journey of hope, rebellion, violence, transmission and sisterhood that will question the very foundations of our societies.
Olfa Hamrouni, Eya Chikhaoui, Tayssir Chikhaoui, Nour Karoui, Ichraq Matar, Majd Mastoura, Hend Sabry, Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali
Where to watch
Kino Film Collection
Curator Review
Verdict
A daring hybrid of documentary and reenactment that turns a family tragedy into something raw, unsettling, and deeply humane. Its formal risks pay off in a powerful study of trauma, sisterhood, and the forces that shape rebellion and disappearance.
Best for
Viewers who like formal experiments and docu-fiction hybrids
People interested in family trauma, women’s stories, and social oppression
Fans of emotionally intense festival cinema
Viewers open to morally complicated, conversation-starting films
Skip if
You want a straightforward, conventional documentary
You prefer light, comforting, or neatly resolved stories
You dislike reenactments or films that blur reality and performance
You need clear answers more than emotional and thematic complexity
Overview
Four Daughters is one of those documentaries that refuses to stay in its lane. It begins as a family testimony, then keeps shifting into reenactment, performance, and self-interrogation until the form itself becomes part of the subject. That instability can be disorienting, but it also makes the film feel alive, as if the process of remembering is happening in real time.
Worth noting
What emerges is a devastating portrait of a mother and daughters shaped by patriarchy, violence, and political extremism. The film is less interested in tidy explanation than in the emotional weather of the family: shame, anger, grief, tenderness, and the stubborn need to be heard. It is especially strong when it lets the women contradict each other, because the contradictions feel true.
Bottom line
The result is intimate and confrontational at once. It can feel ethically uneasy, even invasive, but that tension is part of its power. This is a film about the cost of telling the truth, and about cinema as a space where pain can be staged, examined, and perhaps partially transformed.
Top Letterboxd reviews
ronan (3.5★) · 1456 likes
(nathan fielder voice) Olfa needed to move past her trauma. So I hired two actresses to portray her estranged daughters and had her and her other two daughters reenact everything they’d gone through.
Angelica Jade Bastién🪼🌷 (4.5★) · 349 likes
An astounding experiment that grows into something trippy, beguiling and unnerving. I turned to my partner while watching this to say I felt like I was on drugs even though I was not (for once) while watching this. One of the most stunning examples of the feminine grotesque I’ve seen in a very long time.
Colin Clune (5★) · 342 likes
An extremely honest and open look at generational trauma, this portrays what drove two young girls to leave their family for ISIS with an entirely unique hybrid between documentary and collaborative storytelling. Honestly, I’m not even 100% convinced it’s ethical. It feels like listening in on group therapy, but the real girls direct the actors. The actors chastise the women they are portraying, and we jump in and out of roleplay all the time. It’s really something and gets moments… more An extremely honest and open look at generational trauma, this portrays what drove two young girls to leave their family for ISIS with an entirely unique hybrid between documentary and collaborative storytelling. Honestly, I’m not even 100% convinced it’s ethical. It feels like listening in on group therapy, but the real girls direct the actors. The actors chastise the women they are portraying, and we jump in and out of roleplay all the time. It’s really something and gets moments… more
universzero (4.5★) · 257 likes
📜 Documentary (2023) 🌟 96th Academy Awards 🌴 Cannes
"Some people dream of going to the Maldives. My sister, she dreamed of spending a night in a grave."
"They say that a cat—no, don't scratch me!—is so afraid for her babies that she eats them. I was so afraid for them that I was unable to protect them. I didn't eat them, but I lost them."
Four Daughters is so much better than I expected from the blurb. I won't… more
André (3.5★) · 227 likes
This documentary tells the story of Olfa and her daughters, two of whom are no longer with the family for “certain” reasons. The events are told in interviews and also reenacted by actors representing the two absent girls and other characters. This causes some really awkward situations. At one point, one of the real daughters tells the actor who plays her stepfather how much she hates him, with a sharp knife in her hand. The guy really scared himself shitless… more This documentary tells the story of Olfa and her daughters, two of whom are no longer with the family for “certain” reasons. The events are told in interviews and also reenacted by actors representing the two absent girls and other characters. This causes some really awkward situations. At one point, one of the real daughters tells the actor who plays her stepfather how much she hates him, with a sharp knife in her hand. The guy really scared himself shitless… more
2008 · Animation, Documentary, Drama · 1h 30m · R · Curator 9.0/10 (119K ratings)
A landmark animated documentary about memory, trauma, and the instability of testimony, with a similarly bold approach to representing lived experience.