They were “devoured by the wolf”, declares Olfa Hamrouni ominously in the opening seconds of Kaouther Ben Hania’s transfixing, Oscar-nominated documentary. She’s talking about her eldest teenage daughters, Ghofrane and Rahma, who in 2016 fled Tunisia to join Islamic State in Libya.
However, this isn’t a straightforward story of radicalisation. As Ben Hania paints a hugely intimate and frank portrait of sisterhood, motherhood and family – before and after the girls’ disappearance – you can’t help ponder a niggling question: were her daughters fed to the wolf in one way or another?
