By Wafa Thabet Mezghanni
Short movie ”Hbal essorra/Ombilical cord” directed by Mohamed Yassine Zairi
The film, directed by Mohamed Yassine Zairi and screened at the 2025 Kelibia Festival of Amateur Films, tells the story of a social pariah who returns home after a long absence and a painful journey to overcome the past, live in the present, and face the future. The encounter with the father, unlike the smooth and tolerant meeting with the sister, is portrayed as brutal yet inevitable and crucial. The unfolding events suggest that reconciliation with oneself, and then with the past and family, might be possible. The central question, however, is whether true reconciliation actually takes place and if so, to what extent the storyline and cinematography highlight appeasement and acceptance.
From the start, it is clear that coming home is not an easy experience, neither for the Trans person, Ali/Lily, nor for the father. This reminds us of the character Manitas del Monte in the film Emilia Perez (Jacques Audiard, 2024) and the devastating feelings she experienced after undergoing gender-affirming surgery and confronting her own family. Confrontation is always painful and emotionally torturous, and this is exactly the case in La Voix du Retour. The body language, hesitant movements, and haunting memories, amplified through cinematography (camera angles, framing, and editing) emphasize the emotional and physical distance between the father and Ali/Lily. As viewers, we feel the tension immediately from the separate frames capturing each character individually. The father’s denial and ongoing conflict with his child are conveyed through his refusal to make eye contact or accept anything from her. Yet the refusal is not one-sided. Lily herself is shown as torn between two impulses: defying social norms to affirm her identity, and forgiving in order to reduce tension and to reconcile both with herself and with her family. Filming her in front of the mirror underscores this psychological split, her hesitation, and her search for identity.
It is worth highlighting that Lily’s return is not only motivated by her sister’s plea, linked to their father’s illness, but also by a deeper need to voice what has long been silenced, dismantle illusions, and confront pain. She comes to blame, to cry, to complain, and perhaps even to seek revenge. Ali/Lily’s alienation and inner conflict are conveyed not only through characterization and storyline, but also through the interplay of images and sound. In one of the most breathtaking scenes, the viewer follows the touch of a torturous rubber hose, paired with a non-diegetic sound flashback: the memory of the father’s humiliating insults toward his child “You made us the talk of the neighbors; we became the daily bread of their stories.”
The attempted strangling of the father is not portrayed as an act of deliberate revenge, but as a moment of emotional rupture. At that point, the past felt larger than her, the emotions were overwhelming. The encounter recalls many painful memories: the humiliation endured before leaving the country and the difficulties of settling in France, all the emotions surging like an effervescent stream. The old adage, “Your past predicts your future,” resonates here. Reconciliation, the film suggests, requires laying bare the unspoken, facing the past in order to survive the present and future.
As the story unfolds, the camera language begins to emphasize proximity. We now see Lily and her father in the same frame, either side by side or facing each other. She teaches him how to express himself through alphabet letters, perhaps an attempt to find common ground, to spell out what has long remained unspoken between them. The final scene reunites the whole family, and the Arabic title Umbilical Cord reinforces the idea of connectivity, continuity, and reunion, hence reconciliation.
Through its storyline, character development, and cinematography, La Voix du Retour leads us to the conclusion that reconciliation though fraught with pain and hesitation is both a personal and collective necessity.
Benouda avoids directly confronting the ethical paradox of the story (which is both critical and controversial) and instead focuses on its deeply human dimension. The standout performance of the actor Hamadi Bejaoui who performed the role of Ali/Lily, the gradual building of characterization, and its evolution, the cinematography, among other things, make the film a rich offering at the Kelibia International Festival of Amateur Films 2025.
