Beauty and the Dogs

Director: Kaouther Ben Hania

2017 / 100min / DCP

Premiering in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival, Ben Hania’s frantic, fraught drama—comprised of just nine traveling shots—takes place in the course of one traumatic night in the immediate aftermath of a sexual assault on a Tunisian university student, Mariam (Mariam Al Ferjani), by police officers. This, however, is only the beginning of Mariam’s travails, as she’s sucked into a bullying bureaucratic nightmare that includes indifferent medical professionals, corrupt cops well-rehearsed in the business of cover-ups trying to intimidate her into dropping charges, and a society all-too-accustomed to blaming the victims in such crimes. “A crescendo of humiliation, anxiety, and abuse... Plays like a horror movie where every choice is a Catch-22 and every door a trap… Unapologetically feminist and furiously single-minded.” —The New York Times