TO DREAM PERHAPS

Tunisia, France I 2025 I Arabic dialogue with English subtitles l 83 min

ABOUT FILM

The documentary To Dream, Perhaps (Tunis – Berlin) by Tunisian director Nidhal Guiga celebrates its World Premiere at the Malmö Arab Film Festival — a special moment that grants the festival the honor of launching a new cinematic work, while taking audiences on a quiet, contemplative journey between dream and exile, homeland and distance.

The film unfolds along two parallel lines: Tunis, with its post-revolution transformations and unresolved questions, and Berlin, as a new space for living and rethinking the self. Between the two cities, Guiga observes a generation living on the margins — suspended between the desire to dream and the weight of reality, between what was and what could be.

What distinguishes To Dream, Perhaps is its restrained tone and its reliance on fleeting, everyday details as primary cinematic material. Rather than presenting a direct political discourse, the film works through sensation: walking through streets, ambient sounds, distances, and waiting. The camera observes more than it explains, allowing time the space it needs to unfold.

Here, the documentary is not a definitive testimony but an open question: Is dreaming still possible after disappointment? Can exile become a space for reimagining the self, rather than merely a forced departure? Through this tension, the film builds its own language, where silence, repetition, and emptiness become essential narrative elements.

The Tunisian-French co-production reflects the transnational experience at the heart of the film, while maintaining a deep connection to its local context. Cinema here is not an answer, but a sincere attempt to understand — and to remain within the space of questioning.

As a film making its world premiere at the Malmö Arab Film Festival, To Dream, Perhaps (Tunis – Berlin) offers a poetic and meditative documentary experience, inviting audiences to discover a new work from its very first moment, and to reflect on the meaning of dreaming, exile, and transformation through an honest and human cinematic language.