“In a Whisper”, interview with director Leyla Bouzid

Presented in Competition at the 76th Berlin International Film Festival, “In a Whisper” marks a new chapter in Leyla Bouzid’s cinematic exploration of intimacy and inherited silence. The film follows Lilia as she returns home in Tunisia for her uncle’s funeral. Her family knows little about her life abroad, and nothing about the woman she loves. As relatives gather under one roof and old memories resurface, the film unfolds as both a family drama and a discreet investigation into the uncle’s sudden death.

“The film is about the untold, the taboos, the family secrets that are hidden,” Bouzid explains. “Even when unsaid, they resonate in everyone.” For the director, silence is never neutral; it reverberates, shaping relationships and misunderstandings across generations.

Silence as Inheritance

The film suggests that silence can be transmitted like a tradition. For Bouzid, breaking it is both a personal and political gesture. “At some point, things have to be said,” she notes. “Not saying them can make them worse. Everything is felt.” The director frames secrecy not only as a family dynamic but as a societal mechanism that regulates private life.

In Tunisia, homosexuality remains criminalised, and Bouzid approaches the topic without provocation, but with clarity. “People should have the freedom to love each other,” she states, insisting that private sexuality should not be policed by family or law. Yet the film avoids a binary opposition between individual freedom and collective belonging. Lilia does not reject her roots; rather, she negotiates her place within them.

Family, Bouzid stresses, remains the foundation of Tunisian society. “It’s not easy to reject everything,” she says, acknowledging the depth of generational transmission. “In a Whisper”  therefore refuses rupture in favour of dialogue, suggesting that new forms of kinship can coexist within traditional frameworks.

The House as Living Organism

If family is central, the house becomes its embodiment. Bouzid describes the location as the film’s “main character.” The grandmother, the matriarch, is inseparable from this space, occupying its corners like a silent guardian of memory. Inside the house, time accumulates in layers: childhood recollections, old photographs, inherited gestures.

Working with cinematographer Sébastien Goepfert, Bouzid crafted a chiaroscuro aesthetic that mirrors the narrative arc. The interiors are initially dim, with figures framed in backlight or shadow. Gradually, windows open and light enters the frame. “In the beginning it’s quite dark; in the end there is much more light,” she explains. The visual progression mirrors the slow articulation of what was once concealed.

Women at the Center

The ensemble cast is led by the formidable Hiam Abbass, whose performance anchors the film’s emotional core. Bouzid recalls meeting Abbass by chance at a festival. “I never choose actors impulsively,” she says. “But with her, it was immediate.” Abbass responded quickly to the script, engaging deeply not only with her own scenes but with the entire narrative structure, even coaching younger cast members.

“What I love is the way she inhabits silence,” Bouzid notes. “Her silences are full of emotions.” The film foregrounds women: grandmother, mother, daughter,  as decision-makers within the domestic sphere. “Inside the house, it is women’s territory,” Bouzid observes, while acknowledging the persistence of patriarchy in Tunisian society.

Rather than portraying victims, she constructs a matriarchal constellation of complex figures. Their faces, marked by age and experience, are filmed without cosmetic erasure. Wrinkles are not hidden but illuminated.

Love Beyond Categories

The film also addresses the asymmetry in how male and female homosexuality are perceived. While both are criminalised, Bouzid highlights how masculinity is often policed more visibly, whereas lesbian relationships may be dismissed or trivialised. Yet she connects Lilia’s trajectory to that of her uncle, binding their experiences within the same family narrative.

In the film’s closing movement, the presence of a child gestures toward continuity rather than fracture. After death, there is birth. After burial, there is a possibility. Bouzid is careful not to frame her work as provocation. “I try to be honest,” she says. “If art doesn’t bother at all, maybe it’s not the point.”

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