Winner of the Golden Eye for Best Documentary at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, Four Daughters is a film of defiance. Directed by Oscar-nominated Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania, Four Daughters expertly blurs the lines between fiction and non-fiction to tell the origin story of Olfa, her four daughters, and the generational trauma that casts an overwhelming shadow on their shared future. This isn’t your traditional documentary, not in the slightest. While the events are real–tragically so–the storytelling approach is entirely unique and singular. Not only has Kaouther Ben Hania crafted an unforgettable work of art with Four Daughters, but she may have also invented a new genre of film.

Olfa Hamrouni is a middle-aged mother living in Tunisia with her two younger daughters, Eya and Tayssir. Her two older girls, Ghofrane and Rahma, left the family home years ago after becoming radicalized by extremist groups in their hometown. This loss has been nearly impossible for Olfa and her younger girls to accept. There was no closure in the form of a “goodbye,” no see you later, just absence one night, leaving the remaining family with guilt, anger, shame, and sadness. Reacting to this missing piece in their previously tight family circle, director Kaouther Ben Hania reimagines what life would be like if Ghofrane and Rahma returned home. Casting professional actresses as the missing eldest daughters, including acclaimed Egyptian-Tunisian actress Hend Sabri as Olfa, Olfa is reunited with her missing girls through re-enactment scenes and given the opportunity to heal past wounds and unpack complicated family history together.

Recounting moments from her life through intimate interviews, Olfa is also present in many of the reunification scenes. However, another actor steps in to play her in scenes that become too upsetting (including scenes of sexual abuse and violence). This is method acting taken to an extreme and such a stunning process to observe as an audience member.

Under the guidance of director Kaouther Ben Hania, the family re-enacts specific scenes in an effort to express their feelings toward “Ghofrane” and “Rahma” and work through their family issues which, it turns out, is quite traumatic. In one example, a man playing Olfa’s partner, Wissem, is in a scene that depicts addiction and sexual abuse. The confrontation from the younger girls (Eya and Tayssir) gets to be too overwhelming for the male actor, who calls off the shoot and leaves the scene, needing to smoke a cigarette in an effort to come down from the emotional toll of the scene.

Ghofrane and Rahma’s homecoming may be manufactured, but the feelings their presence evokes are real. It’s obvious that this acting is a form of therapy for Olfa, Eya, and Tayssir, who vulnerably relive their own trauma in this safe setting. Behind the camera, the string composition by composer Amine Bouhafa is a hauntingly beautiful representation of melancholy. Each note carries with it a sense of forlorn longing and heartbreak.

The magic of Kaouther Ben Hania’s Four Daughters is its ability to incorporate performance art within a documentary without feeling inauthentic. It never strays from the purpose-driven mission of searching for inner truth. The sad truth is that Olfa may never get her two daughters back but, if this film offers even the slightest respite from that devastating reality, then it will have served its purpose.

In theaters on November 3 in Los Angeles, with expansion to follow.