Tunisia has made its Oscar pick, selecting Take My Breath, the debut feature from director Nada Mezni Hafaiedh as its entry for the 2025 Academy Awards in the best international feature category.
The drama follows Shams, a young seamstress whose tranquil life unravels when their intersex identity, and the steamy love triangle in which their are entwined, is exposed. When Shams is targeted by an obsessive attacker, they are forced to escape to the capital city of Tunis.
Amina Ben Smail, seen alongside Gael García Bernal and Renate Reinsve in Pierro Mesina’s Berlin film festival entry Another End, plays Shams. Sana Ben Cheikh Larbi, Mohamed Mrad, and Fatima Ben Saidane co-star. Slim Hafaiedh of Leyth Production and Ziad H. Hamzeh of Hamzeh Mystique Films co-produced.
Take My Breath had its world premiere at the Warsaw Film Festival last year and has been a box office hit at home.
Mad Solutions, a sales agent specializing in films from the Middle East and North Africa, picked up world sales rights for the feature.
Tunisia has received a single Oscar nomination in the best international feature category, in 2020 for Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Man Who Sold His Skin. Ben Hania’s experimental non-fiction feature Four Daughters made the international shortlist in 2023 and picked up a nomination for best documentary.
The shortlist for best international feature contenders will be announced on Dec. 17. Nominations will be announced on Jan. 17 and the winners of the 2025 Academy Awards on Sunday, March 2.
