Tunisia - (AFP) - In her first feature film, "Under the Tree," Tunisian-French director Areej Seheiri gives space to "modern" rural women to create a small world in which they can freely express themselves despite the constraints of their conservative society.

For an hour and a half, some female fig pickers in a rural area in northwestern Tunisia share their secrets, their love stories, and their differences.

The feature film will be released in European cinemas soon, and it has been selected to represent Tunisia in the 2023 Oscars competition in the Best Foreign Film category.

Al-Suhairi, 40, said in an interview with Agence France-Presse that the field of fig trees adjacent to the village of Kesra "represents a space of freedom in which workers, especially young women, exchange conversations and discussions on all topics freely."

The actors, who are amateurs from this region and are accustomed to working in the agricultural field, tried to tell stories and excerpts from their harsh lives, which are somewhat similar to the hardness of a tree trunk, but at the same time are fragile and sensitive like the fruit of a ripe fig.

Al-Sehairi adds, "The film is inspired by real events told to me about female farm workers who work hard throughout the year, and also from high school girls who come in the summer" during vacation.

Actress Amani Al-Fudaili plays the role of the girl "Fidaa" in the film, and she originally works as a cherry picker during the summer holidays in her village.

The film revolves around a group of mainly young girls who, sometimes with the help of a boy, pick the ripe and fragile figs and then hand them over to older women to pack them carefully in boxes. And all this happens under the supervision of the chief of work, who represents a symbol of traditional patriarchal authority.

“Under the Tree” was produced with a modest budget of 300,000 euros, and it is “a film about the individual and the group because they are inseparable,” according to Al-Suhairi.

The artwork also touches on the concept of solidarity between women when they share lunch, as well as the desire for liberation, and this is clearly shown when they go for a walk with the boys by the river or when they make themselves up after a hard day of work, and take pictures and post them on social media.

"Our youth is as contemporary as in the rest of the world," says the director, adding that she is trying to "avoid stereotypes of rural women that are marketed abroad as introverted and miserable."

Fidaa and her co-workers are well aware of the difficult economic and political situation that Tunisia is going through, but they do not give up dreaming of a better future.

The director also shows women over the age of fifty, exhausted from the trouble of years, who spend the rest period to take a nap or talk about issues related to their physical pain and their brokenness.

The film presents this intersection between the two generations, "because working women may reflect a picture of the girls' future," according to Al-Suhairi.

The director granted the actors absolute freedom to improvise the dialogue while respecting the pillars of the script, which "made the director very happy", especially in terms of "the ease of expression among young people freely, simply, honestly and spontaneously."

Al-Sehiri did not think, when making this “different and special” film, that it would win awards, nor that it would represent Tunisia in the Oscars.

Her work won the “Silver Tanit” award at the “Carthage Film Festival” in 2022, after winning the “Bayer d’Or” award at the Francophone Film Festival in Namur (Belgium) and the “Echo Proud” committee award at the Cannes Film Festival.

The film is a joint production between Tunisia, France, Switzerland, Germany and Qatar, and it will start showing on Wednesday in France, and contracts have been signed for its distribution in Italy and the United Kingdom.

Al-Suhairi concludes, "I am very happy. A first film made by amateurs could not have been better than it was. This is amazing."