Writer and Director: Maja-Ajmia Zellama
The London Film Festival offers strong representation for debut writers and directors, a great showcase for creatives exploring stories and experiences for the first time. This year Maja-Ajmia Zellama presents Têtes Brûlées, a portrait of grief and the rituals of memorial within the Tunisian community in Belgium told through the eyes of pre-teen Eya. Her age gives Eya exclusive access to both the female and male partitions within a grieving household and a unique perspective on the complexity of family practices and expectations.
Very close to her adored adult brother Younés, his sudden death from a ricochet bullet plunges Eya and her family into days of mourning before the funeral can take place. As extended well-wishers come to the house to pay their respects, Eya is drawn into the rituals of her Muslim faith in collective and personal ceremonies while trying also to remember the man she knew.
Zellama’s film is very modest, spending some time establishing the close relationship between brother and sister in a busy family house. The scenes of Younés and Eya circling town on his motorbike lead into a night of celebration as an engagement among his friendship group as Zellama indicates the lively group full of music, dancing and happiness for one another. The stark tone when the audience hears of Younés’ death is nicely controlled, making it as shockingly sudden for the viewer as it is for the family in a house that quickly becomes mired in sadness.
Zellama reveals the gender contrasts in the household, women clutching each other in despair as tears flow freely and, later at the funeral, standing apart from the burial itself. The expectation from the various matriarchs for Eya to behave in a particular way, to set aside play and to sit silently with them is played against her desire to spend time with the younger men that Younés knew, a place where she feels she belongs and can feel closer to her brother. And it’s interesting to see these expectations and responsibilities placed on men and women in the community, particularly the burden of entertaining endless callers who arrive to share prayers and acts of support.
In a mature performance from Safaa Gharbaoui, some of Eya’s strongest moments are the more introspective ones, staged entirely alone by the writer-director who shows her character putting on her brother’s clothes and rings as a physical reflection of her sorrow, seeking comfort in the tangible things he owned, while later she also leans on faith in private prayer. Eya’s perspective is strongly controlled throughout Têtes Brûlées and her age gives her, and Zellman’s camera, the freedom to move through the unhappy household at will.
Yet this is a film that holds back on stating the pressures placed on family members and friends to behave in particular ways, and contrasts between the inherited expectations of senior community members and the much softer acts of grieving favoured by the young could be explored in more depth. But this is a meaningful debut from a writer-director with an eye for emotional nuance and the size of loss in confined urban environments.
Têtes Brûlées is screening at the BFI London Film Festival 2025 from 8-19 October.
