The Dove's Lost Necklace

The Dove's Lost Necklace (Le collier perdu de la colombe), 1991

Tunisia, Italy, France | DVD, Color, 86’ | Arabic
Director: Nacer Khemir

The second film in Tunisian director Khemir’s desert trilogy, this film is a fairy tale in which Hasan, a calligrapher’s apprentice enthralled by the image of the Princess of Samarkand, searches for the 60 names of love. One day Hasan finds a page from a mysterious book which he believes contains the secrets of love. Accompanied by a young boy and his monkey, he sets out to find the remaining pages of the manuscript. Adapted from the book of the same title by Ibn Hazm, the film, crisscrossing between fairy tale and poetry, says that “every dream has its response” and invites the audience to become lost among beautiful images of the East. A souk of booksellers from ancient times, a tailor sewing a shroud by the dim light of an oil lamp, the uniqueness of the desert are all in The Dove's Lost