''The Source'' () is a 2011 French drama-comedy film directed by Radu Mihăileanu, starring

Leïla Bekhti Yasmine Leïla Bekhti (born 6 March 1984) is a French film and television actress. She is best known for her roles in '' Tout ce qui brille'' (2010) and, in 2006, '' Paris, je t'aime'' and '' Sheitan''. Early life Bekhti was born in 1984 in Iss ...

and

Hafsia Herzi Hafsia Herzi (born 25 January 1987) is a French actress, screenwriter, and director. She is best known for her debut role in the award-winning Franco-Tunisian feature '' The Secret of the Grain'' for which she won the award for most promising actr ...

. It premiered In Competition at the

2011 Cannes Film Festival The 64th Cannes Film Festival took place from 11 to 22 May 2011. American actor Robert De Niro served as the president of the jury for the main competition. American filmmaker Terrence Malick won the Palme d'Or, the festival's top prize, for t ...

Plot

Set in a remote village in

North Africa North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...

, the story focuses on women who go on a

sex strike A sex strike (sex boycott), or more formally known as Lysistratic nonaction, is a method of nonviolent resistance in which one or more persons refrain from or refuse Human sexual behavior, sex with partners until policy or social demands are me ...

against having to fetch water from a distant well. The story is an adaptation of the ancient Greek comedy

Lysistrata ''Lysistrata'' ( or ; Attic Greek: , ''Lysistrátē'', ) is an ancient Greek comedy by Aristophanes, originally performed in classical Athens in 411 BC. It is a comic account of a woman's mission to end the Peloponnesian War between Greek city ...

Cast

as Leila *

as Loubna Esmeralda * Sabrina Ouazani as Rachida * Saleh Bakri as Sami *

Hiam Abbass Hiam Abbass (; ; born 30 November 1960), also spelled Hiyam Abbas, is a Palestinian actress and film director with Israeli and French citizenship. She is known for her roles in films such as ''The Syrian Bride'' (2004), '' Paradise Now'' (2005) ...

as Fatima *

Biyouna Baya Bouzar (; born September 13, 1952), known by the stage name Biyouna (), is an Algerian singer, dancer, and actress born in Belcourt, now known as Belouizdad, Algiers, Algeria. Early life Having a very early passion for singing, she was ...

as The Old Gun *

Zinedine Soualem Zinedine Soualem (born 17 April 1957) is a French actor. He has appeared in at least five films directed by Cédric Klapisch. Personal life Soualem is Algerian by ancestry, and was at one point married to the actress Hiam Abbass Hiam Abb ...

Production

The film was produced by France's Elzevir Films and Oï Oï Oï Productions, in co-production with France 3 Cinéma and

EuropaCorp EuropaCorp S.A. (stylised in opening logo as EUROPA CORP. until 2022) is a French motion picture company headquartered in Saint-Denis, a northern suburb of Paris, and one of a few full-service independent studios that both produce and distribute ...

. Other than the 64% French investment, Belgian companies contributed 14%, Italian 12% and Moroccan 10%. It was pre-bought by

Canal+ Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flo ...

and CinéCinéma and received support from

Eurimages Eurimages is a cultural support fund of the Council of Europe, established in . Eurimages promotes independent filmmaking by providing financial support to feature-length fiction, animation, and documentary films. In doing so, it encourages co-op ...

. The total budget was 7.99 million euro.

Release

''The Source'' premiered in competition at the

on 21 May. EuropaCorp Distribution released it in France on 2 November 2011.

Accolades

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Source 2011 films 2011 comedy-drama films 2010s Arabic-language films Films directed by Radu Mihăileanu French comedy-drama films Films produced by Luc Besson Films set in Morocco Environmental films Italian comedy-drama films Belgian comedy-drama films 2010s French-language films 2011 multilingual films French multilingual films Belgian multilingual films Italian multilingual films 2010s French films Films based on Lysistrata Films scored by Armand Amar 2010s Belgian films