Tunisian director Fares Naanaa’s A Full Moon Night, winner of the top Dubai Film Connection (DFC) prize last year, will start shooting in February 2014.

“We’re still missing the money for post-production but we’re going to shoot it, make a rough cut of the film and try to finalise finance off that,” said Tunis-based producer Habib Attia of Cinetelefilms.

Popular Tunisian actor and comedian Lotfi Abdelli has signed to play the husband in the film about a couple whose marriage disintegrates after the death of their daughter. The role of the wife has yet to be cast.

The film will shoot in Tunis and the oasis city of Tozeur in south-west Tunisia. A Full Moon Night picked up $25,000 in award money at DFC last year, as one of the three top DFC prizewinners alongside Me, Myself And Murdoch and Batata. The film is budgeted at $800,000.

Attia has two films in the Muhr Arab Feature competition this year – Kaouther Ben Hania’s Challat Of Tunis, about a man who slashed women’s posteriors, and Rashid Masharawi’s Palestine Stereo.

He and Masharawi are also in attendance at the DFC with the latter’s latest project Gaza DC about the ill-fated relationship between a US activist and a young refugee in the Gaza Strip.

Attia will also produce Ben Hania’s revived project La Cité De Plomb – about two rebellious teenagers. “It’s an old project that she wrote several years ago and we’re now updating to fit the new political and cultural situation in Tunisia,” says Attia. A new script will be available in Janaury and Attia plans to start raising finance then.

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