Love and human connections blossom within nature’s watch in Under the Fig Trees, Erige Sehiri’s tender and immaculately composed orchard chamber piece.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 3, 2024

A quietly exquisite day-in-the-life ensemble drama about fig-pickers in rural Tunisia, kissed with a touch of Shakespearean pastoral.

| Feb 13, 2024

A patient film, and one with some of the most gorgeous cinematography I’ve seen in a very long time.

| Feb 13, 2024

Under the Fig Trees is a big-minded film that grounds its ideas about labor, sexism, faith, and modernity in the zippy rhythms of its characters’ negotiations around friendship, romance, and work.

| Feb 7, 2024

A marvelous little movie.

| Feb 1, 2024

It’s not the most rewatchable film, but Under the Fig Trees will capture your curiosity and more than satisfy a need for an excellent character-focused drama.

| Original Score: 9/10 | Jan 30, 2024

Sehiri handles it all gracefully enough to manage a sudden sense of exhilarating if fragile largess at the fadeout.

| Jan 27, 2024

The consistency of the performances by the cast of first timers, all operating with unshowy nuance even in dialogue-heavy roles, is utterly astounding.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jan 26, 2024

Amidst the sappy propaganda and the sadistic extremism, lies a fine, intelligent, grounded social film. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 17, 2023

A sensual symphony of work in the fields. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 11, 2023

Love, liberation and oppression all take their turn under the sun as community is strengthened or challenged, and a society is subtly implied.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 30, 2023

[A] beguiling, sun-dappled drama...

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 21, 2023

I can’t say for sure how credible this is as a picture of modern Tunisia, but as a low-key, warm-hearted movie it’s beguiling.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 19, 2023

The film's naturalism flows like a gentle summer's breeze.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 16, 2023

Sometimes the film loses its narrative traction. But the loose style gives the film an easy and attractive swing...

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 16, 2023

Sehiri’s observational gaze (crafted alongside DP Frida Marzouk, who makes the most out of the orchard’s warm natural light) may be borrowed from her background in documentary filmmaking. But it is here deftly deployed.

| Jan 19, 2023

The highs and lows of one day play-out, but in the end the bond of sisterhood endures.

| Oct 6, 2022

An understated and intimate story of sisterhood.

| May 28, 2022

Set over the course of one day, Erige Sehiri’s narrative feature debut Under the Fig Trees is a thoughtful ensemble film about the group of workers in a Tunisian fig orchard.

| May 28, 2022

Sehiri manages to impart a sense of sisterhood, and the importance of it, especially in a patriarchal world where these girls must bring about change in order for them to progress.

| May 26, 2022