The World (2012)

Die Welt is an audacious hybrid between fiction and documentary, showing contemporary Tunisia shortly after the Jasmine Revolution in 2011. In this insightful moral drama about a society in the vacuum between dictatorship and democracy, we follow the young DVD salesman Abdallah, who becomes increasingly frustrated by his inability to realize a fulfilling existence for himself. After meeting the Dutch tourist Anna, he starts dreaming of a better life in Europe, or Die Welt, as his father calls the promised land on the other side of the Mediterranean. Will Abdallah succeed-like his father did in the past-in getting to Europe with the help of a Dutch woman? Or will he have to find another way to escape his native country? And does he want to leave at all? In his debut, Dutch film director Alex Pitstra investigates his Tunisian roots, which he was unfamiliar with most of his life. He paints a mesmerizing picture of the current state of affairs in his father's country, seen through Western eyes. Pitstra worked with both professional actors as well as family members in supporting roles, including his father, his half-sister and his cousins from France. Together with filmmaker and friend Thijs Gloger, who operated the camera and assisted in writing and editing, and with the help of the young Tunesian screenwriter Abdallah Rezgui, Pitstra has given the film a fresh cinematic edge that draws the viewer right into the immediacy of everyday life in Tunisia.