"Les Enfants rouges" by Lotfi Achour, a film about the courage of Tunisian youth

The French-Tunisian director goes back to the beheading of a 16-year-old shepherd by Islamists in 2015 near the Algerian border.

The Tunisian filmmaker returns to a jihadist attack against young shepherds, which upset his country in 2015, through a tenuous dramaturgy and a casting shouting truth.

After years in the theatre, Lotfi Achour made five short films that were awarded many times throughout the world. In 2016, with La laine sur le dos, the Tunisian was selected for the short-film competition at the Cane Festival. In 2016 he made his first feature film, Tomorrow at dawn. Les Enfants rouges, his second film, was released on May 7, 2025 in France, after making his world premiere at the Festival de Locarno 2024. Selected at more than …

In the Tunisian mountains, Islamist terrorists kill and decapitate a young shepherd before entrusting his head to his 14-year-old cousin, who is responsible for bringing her back to his family as a warning. According to a terrible true story, Les Enfants rouges de Lofti Achour wants a lot too much at once: to report without weighing down the recent history of Tunisia, to document the way of life of people almost delivered to themselves, and to d…

Lotfi Achour depicts the terrorist barbarity that kills childhood. A ruthless and strong story, of trauma and mourning, drawn from a sadly true story.

Filmmaker Lotfi Achour stomped with a great sobriety of a drama that deeply shocked Tunisians in 2015: the beheading of an adolescent shepherd by Islamist terrorists. In the theater on May 7, his film "Les Enfants rouges" moved the Tunisian press.