Nacer Khemir

Directing

Nacer Khemir

Born

1948-04-01 (78)

Place of birth

Korba, Tunisia

Known for

Directing

Credits

26 titles

Nacer Khemir (Arabic: ناصر خمير‎), born in 1948 in Korba, Tunisia, is a Tunisian writer, artist, storyteller, and filmmaker. Biography From an early age, Khemir was fascinated by classical Arabic culture and by storytelling. He has cited the One Thousand and One Nights as a particular influence, saying, "I am a child of these stories." However, in spite of this interest and a similar, lasting passion for film, Khemir initially planned a career as a painter and sculptor - a path he has, throughout his life, continued to pursue; his art has been exhibited at, among other institutions, the Centre Pompidou and the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. In 1966, at the age of eighteen, he was awarded …

Known for

Bab'Aziz poster
7.2

The story of a blind dervish named Bab'Aziz and his spirited granddaughter, Ishtar. Together they wander the desert in search of a great reunion of dervishes that takes place just once every thirty years. With faith as their only guide, the two journey for days through the expansive, barren landscape.

Bab'Aziz

2006

Sheherazade: Words Against Death poster
NR

The collected work known as "One Thousand and One Nights" survived for centuries through generations of Arab storytellers, and is now recognized as an integral part of world literature. In this filmed performance, storyteller/filmmaker Nacer Khemir sits on chair in the middle of a dimly lit stage and deploys the magic of words to take us on a journey of the imagination. This simple set-up may not seem like much, but it offers the listener an extraordinarily colorful experience and brilliantly emphasizes the oral nature of the work. As we listen to the expertly told stories, we are equally charmed by their intricacies and entranced by their interconnectedness. Even though Khemir illustrates some of the stories with beautifully filmed sequences, the audience's ability to listen is paramount here. Sheherazade used words to avoid impending death, Khemir uses the art of storytelling to breathe a new life into this ancient masterwork.

Sheherazade: Words Against Death

2011

No artwork available
NR

Retracing the trip to Tunisia that painter Paul Klee took in 1914, Tunisian filmmaker and painter Nacer Khemir leads viewers on a journey of discovery into Arabian culture.

The Trip To Tunis

2007

The Dove's Lost Necklace poster
6.9

The story revolves around Hassan, who is studying Arabic calligraphy from a grand master. Coming across a manuscript fragment, Hassan searches for the missing pieces, believing that once he finds them, he will learn the secrets of love.

The Dove's Lost Necklace

1992

Wanderers of the Desert poster
6.2

A young teacher arrives to take over a village school isolated in the shimmering desert. Legendary figures materialize out of wells and the desert itself, groups of children hurry through a labyrinth of underground corridors, and the teacher is whisked away to a mysterious rendezvous and never returns.

Wanderers of the Desert

1986

L'histoire du pays du bon dieu poster
NR

The story of a man who asks everyone he meets along the way where the border of an unknown country lies. It may be that ‘this land of God’ is his homeland, at once near and far, familiar and strange, within reach and out of reach.

L'histoire du pays du bon dieu

1976

Film credits

2010s · 3 titles

Sheherazade: Words Against Death poster
NR

The collected work known as "One Thousand and One Nights" survived for centuries through generations of Arab storytellers, and is now recognized as an integral part of world literature. In this filmed performance, storyteller/filmmaker Nacer Khemir sits on chair in the middle of a dimly lit stage and deploys the magic of words to take us on a journey of the imagination. This simple set-up may not seem like much, but it offers the listener an extraordinarily colorful experience and brilliantly emphasizes the oral nature of the work. As we listen to the expertly told stories, we are equally charmed by their intricacies and entranced by their interconnectedness. Even though Khemir illustrates some of the stories with beautifully filmed sequences, the audience's ability to listen is paramount here. Sheherazade used words to avoid impending death, Khemir uses the art of storytelling to breathe a new life into this ancient masterwork.

Sheherazade: Words Against Death

2011

Looking for Muhyiddin poster
NR

A man (played by the filmmaker Nacer Khemir) returns home to Tunis to bury his mother. After the burial, his father gives him an "amana" to be handed to a certain Sheikh named Muhyiddin. Taken by his father's request, the man immediately sets out on an epic journey to find the long lost Sheikh and deliver the "amana."

Looking for Muhyiddin

2014

Where to Start? poster
4.5

There are around twenty thousand cafés in Tunisia, but barely ten movie theaters. In the past, we Arabs missed out on the printing revolution. I wonder if today we are missing out on the image revolution. This political fiction attempts to respond, even through utopia, to the hope inspired by this new Tunisia in the making.

Where to Start?

2014

Behind the camera

Bab'Aziz poster
7.2

The story of a blind dervish named Bab'Aziz and his spirited granddaughter, Ishtar. Together they wander the desert in search of a great reunion of dervishes that takes place just once every thirty years. With faith as their only guide, the two journey for days through the expansive, barren landscape.

Bab'Aziz

2006

Bab'Aziz poster
7.2

The story of a blind dervish named Bab'Aziz and his spirited granddaughter, Ishtar. Together they wander the desert in search of a great reunion of dervishes that takes place just once every thirty years. With faith as their only guide, the two journey for days through the expansive, barren landscape.

Bab'Aziz

2006

Sheherazade: Words Against Death poster
NR

The collected work known as "One Thousand and One Nights" survived for centuries through generations of Arab storytellers, and is now recognized as an integral part of world literature. In this filmed performance, storyteller/filmmaker Nacer Khemir sits on chair in the middle of a dimly lit stage and deploys the magic of words to take us on a journey of the imagination. This simple set-up may not seem like much, but it offers the listener an extraordinarily colorful experience and brilliantly emphasizes the oral nature of the work. As we listen to the expertly told stories, we are equally charmed by their intricacies and entranced by their interconnectedness. Even though Khemir illustrates some of the stories with beautifully filmed sequences, the audience's ability to listen is paramount here. Sheherazade used words to avoid impending death, Khemir uses the art of storytelling to breathe a new life into this ancient masterwork.

Sheherazade: Words Against Death

2011

Sheherazade: Words Against Death poster
NR

The collected work known as "One Thousand and One Nights" survived for centuries through generations of Arab storytellers, and is now recognized as an integral part of world literature. In this filmed performance, storyteller/filmmaker Nacer Khemir sits on chair in the middle of a dimly lit stage and deploys the magic of words to take us on a journey of the imagination. This simple set-up may not seem like much, but it offers the listener an extraordinarily colorful experience and brilliantly emphasizes the oral nature of the work. As we listen to the expertly told stories, we are equally charmed by their intricacies and entranced by their interconnectedness. Even though Khemir illustrates some of the stories with beautifully filmed sequences, the audience's ability to listen is paramount here. Sheherazade used words to avoid impending death, Khemir uses the art of storytelling to breathe a new life into this ancient masterwork.

Sheherazade: Words Against Death

2011

The Dove's Lost Necklace poster
6.9

The story revolves around Hassan, who is studying Arabic calligraphy from a grand master. Coming across a manuscript fragment, Hassan searches for the missing pieces, believing that once he finds them, he will learn the secrets of love.

The Dove's Lost Necklace

1992

The Dove's Lost Necklace poster
6.9

The story revolves around Hassan, who is studying Arabic calligraphy from a grand master. Coming across a manuscript fragment, Hassan searches for the missing pieces, believing that once he finds them, he will learn the secrets of love.

The Dove's Lost Necklace

1992

Wanderers of the Desert poster
6.2

A young teacher arrives to take over a village school isolated in the shimmering desert. Legendary figures materialize out of wells and the desert itself, groups of children hurry through a labyrinth of underground corridors, and the teacher is whisked away to a mysterious rendezvous and never returns.

Wanderers of the Desert

1986

Wanderers of the Desert poster
6.2

A young teacher arrives to take over a village school isolated in the shimmering desert. Legendary figures materialize out of wells and the desert itself, groups of children hurry through a labyrinth of underground corridors, and the teacher is whisked away to a mysterious rendezvous and never returns.

Wanderers of the Desert

1986

L'histoire du pays du bon dieu poster
NR

The story of a man who asks everyone he meets along the way where the border of an unknown country lies. It may be that ‘this land of God’ is his homeland, at once near and far, familiar and strange, within reach and out of reach.

L'histoire du pays du bon dieu

1976

L'histoire du pays du bon dieu poster
NR

The story of a man who asks everyone he meets along the way where the border of an unknown country lies. It may be that ‘this land of God’ is his homeland, at once near and far, familiar and strange, within reach and out of reach.

L'histoire du pays du bon dieu

1976

Whispering Sands poster
6.0

A Canadian woman of Arab descent undertakes a trip and hires a guide to help her find a specific place in the Tunisian desert. To encourage her to reveal her secret, the guide tells her Sufi stories inspired by his childhood.

Whispering Sands

2018

Whispering Sands poster
6.0

A Canadian woman of Arab descent undertakes a trip and hires a guide to help her find a specific place in the Tunisian desert. To encourage her to reveal her secret, the guide tells her Sufi stories inspired by his childhood.

Whispering Sands

2018

Looking for Muhyiddin poster
NR

A man (played by the filmmaker Nacer Khemir) returns home to Tunis to bury his mother. After the burial, his father gives him an "amana" to be handed to a certain Sheikh named Muhyiddin. Taken by his father's request, the man immediately sets out on an epic journey to find the long lost Sheikh and deliver the "amana."

Looking for Muhyiddin

2014

Looking for Muhyiddin poster
NR

A man (played by the filmmaker Nacer Khemir) returns home to Tunis to bury his mother. After the burial, his father gives him an "amana" to be handed to a certain Sheikh named Muhyiddin. Taken by his father's request, the man immediately sets out on an epic journey to find the long lost Sheikh and deliver the "amana."

Looking for Muhyiddin

2014

Looking for Muhyiddin poster
NR

A man (played by the filmmaker Nacer Khemir) returns home to Tunis to bury his mother. After the burial, his father gives him an "amana" to be handed to a certain Sheikh named Muhyiddin. Taken by his father's request, the man immediately sets out on an epic journey to find the long lost Sheikh and deliver the "amana."

Looking for Muhyiddin

2014

Loving Wallada poster
NR

Wallada, the only child of one of the last Umayyad caliphs, al-Mustakfi murdered in 1025, asserted herself throughout the 11th century as both a poetess and a free woman. The first European woman to hold a literary salon, she surrounded herself with the artistic and the cultured elite of Cordoba of the time. The film is both the portrait of this century, with its contrasts that saw both Ibn Hazm, author of ‘Tawk al-Hamama’, a manuscript on love and lovers, and the rise of the Andalusian poetry and chant, passing through the influence of Ziryab’s school on music, fashion, fragrance and the formation of a refined elite that eventually spread all over al-Andalus and beyond. The film also tells Wallada and the great poet Ibn Zaydun’s unhappy love story, while evocating the civil war and the fall of the Umayyad caliphate of al-Andalus.

Loving Wallada

2019

Where to Start? poster
4.5

There are around twenty thousand cafés in Tunisia, but barely ten movie theaters. In the past, we Arabs missed out on the printing revolution. I wonder if today we are missing out on the image revolution. This political fiction attempts to respond, even through utopia, to the hope inspired by this new Tunisia in the making.

Where to Start?

2014

Yasmina ou les 60 Noms de l’Amour poster
NR

No synopsis available yet.

Yasmina ou les 60 Noms de l’Amour

2011

No artwork available
NR

This is a film about a man, with a peculiar itinirary, who worked hard to build a bridge between the Arab and the French cultures. A kind of testimony, alternating narration and conversations where the evocation of oneself becomes a curiosity of the other. There are men, whom by their achivements, bring shorelines closer to each other, Andé Miquel is one of them. The film tells why and how a young man from the Languedoc region in France, dreams one day of the other shore of the mediteriranean sea and is passionately interested in the language and Arab cultures to the point that it becomes a total vocation. Sometimes an encounter, a hazard, proves to be irreplaceable, indispensable and finally a destiny.

André Miquel. An encounter with the Arabic language

2010

L'Alphabet de Ma Mère poster
NR

An old woman is sitting with motionless and two eyes closed. Suddenly, a visitor shows up in the courtyard of the house while she is looking at the sunlight through a window. The turtle and a door open onto her memories and it makes her think of a memory about a rosary. The images of an unforgettable past remain in her mind with longing about her missing son.

L'Alphabet de Ma Mère

2008