My Revolution

Ramzi Ben Sliman | France

long
80'
English subtitles

Fourteen-year-old Marwann, originally from Tunisia, has only one goal in life: to fit in at his Parisian high school. But with beat box tricks alone he’ll never make into the higher realms around dream girl Sygrid.

In Paris, three generations of Marwann’s Tunisian family see the Arab Spring blossom in their homeland. Marwann’s mother looks on helplessly and desperately wants to be there for her country in crisis. Grandpa doesn’t really care. Just like Marwann, his mind is on other things. Grandpa wants to feel young again. Marwann, however, wants to appear older. The fourteen-year-old boy is at that point in his life where he is focused on one clear goal: win Sygrid’s heart. And that takes more than lame jokes and beat box tricks.

At school Marwann just can’t seem to bridge that invisible gap between anonymity and popularity. Until an unexpected opportunity arises: Marwann inadvertently ends up on the front page of a big French newspaper as the figurehead of the French supporters of the Arab Spring. Finally he has become someone. Marwann is an activist, and protesting is really cool and mature, right?

Winning the heart of your dreamgirl? That will take more than a few jokes and beat box tricks.

It’s clear that director and screenwriter Ramzi Ben Sliman has a lot of sympathy for Marwann, but that doesn’t mean that the young adolescent gets off easy. By ever more eagerly profiling himself as an activist, he gives his mother the wrong signals. She suddenly sees an opportunity to round up the entire family and take them all to Tunisia to really make a difference.

How can Marwann enjoy his newfound popularity when he has to protest in Tunisia? This makes it not only a film about the bluffing and boasting of developing adolescents, but also about the consequences of it. The moments when they have to learn to live with their unwise decisions.

Hugo Emmerzael (translation by Marjan Westbroek)