BLACK MEDUSA
SYNOPSIS
When she was a kid, Nada lost her parents and her hearing in a car accident. Years passing, she led a life by her own, learned to read on lips and self-isolated herself and working as online video content editor for a start-up. During the weekends, she dresses in black and wanders in bars and clubs. Nada communicates through a smartphone app even if she reads on lips and speaks. She drugs men and go to their places. There, she sexually abuses them and leaves them unconscious. One day, Noura, a 23 years old young women, graphic designer, Algerian living in Tunis since a couple of years, joins Nada’s start-up and immediately falls in love with her.
“Black Medusa is both the portrait of a young woman in post-revolutionary Tunisia and the portrait of a city: Tunis. It is a genre film on gender topic. From thriller to fantasy, through certain codes of the film noir with the figure of the femme fatale or even the thriller with the figure of the serial killer, the film deflects expectations on his topic and is constantly oscillating between genres. The story of Black Medusa is about a strong woman struggling to free herself from the chains of society. Like her editing job creating an imaginary from images, she creates her own reality outside all known social and moral rules. With Black Medusa we wanted to resolutely avoid any psychologizing or moralizing aim. It seems to us that it’s more thrilling to catch the audience attention by the mystery and the atmosphere. From this enigmatic starting point, the suspense and the pace can arise. Black Medusa is a film about discovering feelings after thinking they’re not real.”
YOUSSEF CHEBBI
