Volume on Kaouther Ben Hania
Due Date: 02-14-2026
This volume seeks chapters that will address the films of acclaimed director Kaouther Ben Hania. The Tunisian filmmaker has broken ground by merging documentary and fiction and bringing political narratives of the MENA world to feature film, including contemporary gender issues in Tunisia, the status of Syrian refugees, the Islamic State, and the war on Gaza.
A summary of her five features reveals a web of interrelated themes, all of which bring urgent contemporary issues to the screen with gravity, innovation, and wit. Her first feature film, The Challat of Tunis (2014), comically merges documentary and fiction to comment on social mores and sexual harassment in Tunisia. Her second feature film, Beauty and the Dogs (2017), ostensibly a fiction film, relates the true story of a young woman who was raped by police. Ben Hania overtly addresses the dire status of refugees with The Man Who Sold His Skin (2020), and simultaneously critiques the art market’s commodification of these individuals (the main character a Syrian refugee agrees to have a visa tattooed on his back and pose as art so that he may travel freely to Europe). In her second feature of docufiction, Four Daughters (2021), Ben Hania examines the possible reasons why two of Olfa Hamrouni’s four daughters fled to join the Islamic State, and with reenactment examines not only one family’s struggles but the nation’s post-Revolution era. Finally, combining her interest in innovative documentary and injustice in the Arab world, The Voice of Hind Rejab (2025) uncovers how the Red Crescent attempted to save a six-year-old girl from an attack in Gaza. Actors interact and respond with an actual recording of Hind Rejab’s voice. These features and Ben Hania’s previous shorts demand our serious and extensive inquiry; their subjects, style, funding, and success relate a new path forward in international film.
Some possible themes of interest are:
- Ben Hania’s early work in her short films La Brêche (2003) and Moi, ma soeur et la chose (2006) and her work at Al Jazeera documentary channel
- An auteur study of Ben Hania’s oeuvre, any style or theme that persists throughout
- Questions of transnationalism in the funding of Ben Hania’s films, their art-house public and reception, their subject matters, and their activism
- Feminism in Ben Hania’s work
- Awards won (and not won) by Ben Hania’s films
- The depiction of Tunisia by Ben Hania
- Ben Hania’s relationship to other directors of the MENA
- Reenactment and or docufiction in Ben Hania’s oeuvre
- Your suggested topic on any individual film(s)
These suggested themes are not exhaustive.
Please send a 200–300-word abstract for a chapter to Nicole Beth Wallenbrock by 14 February 2026, with 1 May 2026 as a deadline for chapter drafts.