Girls of the moon : a successful documentary movie about Xeroderma Pigmentosum

Wednesday 31 October 2018

The first public distribution of Girls of the Moon in the context of the Cartago Cinema Days is the opportunity to highlight an original documentary about genodermatoses.

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A precocious and successful filmmaker

Hiba Dhaouadi, born on June 29 1988 in Bizerte (Tunisia), began composing her first song and wrote her first feature film at the age of 12. In 2012, she received a MFA in Film Production and Assistant Directing, but also obtained an Applied License degree in the Cinema, Writing and Filmmaking Program from the Higher Institute of Multimedia Arts in Tunis (ISAMM) two years before. In 2014, she brought Girls of the Moon to the Tribeca Meet Institute. In 2016, this documentary received the Anglo-Tunisian fund, the Rambourg Foundation Prize For Art and Culture, and participated in the Rough-Cut Workshop of the 2018 Cairo International Women Film Festival. Girls of the Moon is also her first documentary film.

Telling the daily life of Xeroderma Pigmentosum sufferers

Girls of the Moon depicts the life of five girls unable to go outside every day because of their genetic disease : "Xeroderma Pigmentosum". Indeed, this disease causes, through genetic mutation, skin cancers every time the patient is exposed to UV rays, which is all the more difficult for people living in sunny countries like Tunisia.

Specifically, the director chose to follow the lifestyle choices of individuals affected by a mortal disease, which leads to the representation of different ways to survive and move forward with one’s life. As a consequence, this documentary is also the story of people battling against a common enemy that will haunt them for their entire lives.

A still limited distribution

As of now, the movie is not supposed to be distributed in Europe. However, it will be released in tunisian cinemas on the beginning on November in the context of the Cartago Cinema Days, with two film shows that will take place at the Omar el Khelifi-Cite de la culture (November 5th) and the ABC Cinema (November 6th). For more information about this festival and the film show, please follow this link.

As for other countries, their will have to wait a little longer. Besides, the french and english translations of the documentary are currently under development.

An inspirational topic

This is not the first time a film or documentary deals with the topic Xeroderma Pigmentosum. Amongts other, El niño de la Luna (1989), Mondscheinkinder (2006), La permission de minuit (2011) or, more recently, Midnight Sun (june 2018), are striking examples of how this peculiar pathology acquired an emotional and cultural dimension over time.

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