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Film: “Bab ‘Aziz: The Sufi Sage”
April 03, 2025Screening at 7:00 p.m. A discussion of the film will follow afterwards.
MADRID
Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62).
Screening at 7:00 p.m. A discussion of the film will follow afterwards.
5 euros: general tickets at the box office
4 euros: Tickets purchased online, the officially unemployed, Casa Árabe
Language Center students and Youth Card holders, by showing the proper
documentation. You may only receive one discount per ticket. Sales in
advance at www.casaarabe.es up to the day of the screening at 12:00 p.m.
Those tickets not sold online will be made available for purchase on
the day of the screening at Casa Árabe’s headquarters, as of one hour
before each screening (payment in cash or by debit/credit card).
Assigned seats with tickets
The film will be shown in the original language with subtitles in Spanish. Discussion in French with consecutive translation.
On Thursday, April 3, Casa Árabe will be screening this film as part of its series “Country Focus: Tunisia,” on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the movie’s premiere. The screening will be followed by a discussion with its director, Nacer Khemir. Buy your ticket now and come to watch the film with us.
Two silhouettes lost in an ocean of sand: the young Ishtar and Bab Aziz, her blind old grandfather. They are headed for a great gathering of dervishes which takes place just once every thirty years. However, in order to find the location where this event is to occur, they must keep faith and figure out how to listen to the endless silence of the desert. The grandfather entertains his granddaughter by telling her stories, including one about a prince who gets lost in the desert and becomes a dervish after contemplating his own soul in the water. Grandfather and granddaughter end up meeting fellow travelers like Osman, who longs to be reunited with a beautiful woman he once found at the bottom of a well; Zaid, whose singing allowed him to recover the beauty he had once lost; or a prince who traded his kingdom in for spiritual peace. The film is based on the story of Sufi mystic Ebrahim Adham.
During the discussion after the screening, the film’s director, Nacer Khemir, will be holding a talk with Karim Hauser, Casa Árabe’s Culture Coordinator. This colloquium will be broadcast live on our YouTube channel.
Nacer Khemir (Korba, Tunisia, 1948) has worked as a sculptor, storyteller and poet, though his best work has been as an award-winning film director. In 1966, at the age of 18, he won a UNESCO scholarship to study film in Paris. In 1975, he completed his first film, L’Histoire du pays du Bon Dieu (The Story of the Land of God). His first feature film, Les baliseurs du désert (Wanderers of the Desert), which came out in 1984, received worldwide acclaim.Khemir’s second feature film, Le collier perdu de la colombe, (The Dove’s Lost Necklace) premiered in 1991 and received several awards, including the Special Jury Prize at Locarno’s International Film Festival. Among his films, Les baliseurs du désert and Le collier perdu de la colombe form the first two installments of what is known as the “Desert Trilogy.” The third, Bab’Aziz: le prince qui contemplait son âme (Bab’Aziz: The Prince That Contemplated His Soul) came out in 2005.
During the discussion after the screening, the film’s director, Nacer Khemir, will be holding a talk with Karim Hauser, Casa Árabe’s Culture Coordinator. This colloquium will be broadcast live on our YouTube channel.
Nacer Khemir (Korba, Tunisia, 1948) has worked as a sculptor, storyteller and poet, though his best work has been as an award-winning film director. In 1966, at the age of 18, he won a UNESCO scholarship to study film in Paris. In 1975, he completed his first film, L’Histoire du pays du Bon Dieu (The Story of the Land of God). His first feature film, Les baliseurs du désert (Wanderers of the Desert), which came out in 1984, received worldwide acclaim.Khemir’s second feature film, Le collier perdu de la colombe, (The Dove’s Lost Necklace) premiered in 1991 and received several awards, including the Special Jury Prize at Locarno’s International Film Festival. Among his films, Les baliseurs du désert and Le collier perdu de la colombe form the first two installments of what is known as the “Desert Trilogy.” The third, Bab’Aziz: le prince qui contemplait son âme (Bab’Aziz: The Prince That Contemplated His Soul) came out in 2005.
Movie poster