Oscar-nominated doc Four Daughters screens at HPPH all this week

It’s fascinating how documentary filmmakers can experiment with form to uncover and expose unexpected layers and stories. Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing (2012), in particular springs to mind, in which Oppenheimer and his crew ask participants of the Indonesian mass killings in 1965-66 to reenact their crimes.

Similarly, writer and director Kaouther Ben Hania’s new documentary mixes the real members of a Tunisian family together with actors playing the four sisters and mother, to help reenact painful events that preceded the two elder daughters leaving to join ISIS.

As the mother, daughters and their doubles meet and cooperate in unearthing the family’s history, the film becomes almost a chamber piece. The close proximity and intimacy as their stories are shared, discussed and self-directed, sometimes bring joy, but also often traumatic memories and experiences that are brought to the surface.

It’s a refreshingly non-judgmental film, which is not to say that the family don’t judge each other. Ofla, the mother, in particular is a strict, moralistic matriarch, repressive of the daughters and sometimes even violent towards them. But what comes through clearly is how they all as women in their different ways, continue to navigate a generational misogyny in which they are taught to be complicit, and how they might take control of their lives, whether through familial bonds, secular or cultural means, or indeed, through embracing Islamic fundamentalism.

Four Daughters is showing this week. The film premiered at Cannes, winning the L’Oeil d’Or for best documentary, has won many other awards, and has been nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 96th Academy Awards.