The Source
Qumra Projects
/ TV Series / Tunisia, Switzerland, Qatar / 2020
In Arabic
Rated: This film has not been rated.
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Synopsis
Five childhood friends from Tunisia’s Thala high school, come together to investigate the mysterious death of Hicham, an older student. In tracing his footsteps over the months before he disappears, the group members leave behind their adolescence and end up on the frontline of the Arab Spring.
November 2010. The Tunisian national anthem rings throughout the Thala High School courtyard. The flag is raised, and the principal announces that Hicham, a former student, has died under “unfortunate” circumstances—running from the police, he had a fatal accident. Five friends listen in silence to the principal’s half-hearted comments. In the middle sits Hamdi, Hicham’s younger brother. Hamdi is distraught. His older brother would never try to escape a situation in which their father, a police commissioner in Thala, could have easily intervened. He wants the truth. But how can you find it in a country that specializes in hiding it? With all the fury and energy of adolescence, Hamdi embarks on this impossible quest, helped by his childhood friends—Raoua the intellectual, Fadi the strategist, Noor the audacious, and Sami the resourceful. Following Hicham’s footsteps, the band leaves Thala to venture further and further from home. They discover the world of cyber activists, and their path ends up crossing that of the historical moment unveiling before them—Bouazizi’s self-immolation, Sidi Bouzid’s uprising, the police’s murderous backlash, and Thala’s own wound—a massacre perpetrated by their own police force. The series ends with a historical scene where the gang runs to catch up with the thousands of protesters on Habib Bourguiba Avenue in Tunis, on January 13th, 2011.