‘My Father Killed Bourguiba’ Explores How a Failed Plot to Overthrow the Government Left a Tunisian Family Struggling to Live With the Consequences

In her sophomore feature “My Father Killed Bourguiba,” Tunisian filmmaker Fatma Riahi examines her father’s role in a failed plot to overthrow the country’s first president, exploring how his political choices impacted the family after his imprisonment and how that’s shaped the course of her life.

The film, which is produced by Riahi in co-production with Dora Bouchoucha and Lina Chaabane of Tunisian outfit Nomadis Images and Omar Ben Ali of SVP Production, was selected for the Pitching Forum at the Thessaloniki Intl. Documentary Festival, which runs March 5 – 15.

“My Father Killed Bourguiba” is a deeply personal journey for the director, who delves into her family’s archive to tell the story of a father who was part of a group that planned to overthrow the regime of Habib Bourguiba — the country’s first president after independence — by military coup in 1987.

The plot failed — the film takes its…