Bezness as Usual
- Toronto International Film Festival
- Doc NYC
- Locarno Film Festival
- *Best Documentary* | Subversive Festival
- Dubai International Film Festival
"Bezness as Usual lets contemporary sensibility confront tradition in a unique and intimate family portrait" - POV Magazine
"Beziness as Usual does not provide any easy answers. Instead, it is a film that deeply understands the complicated nature of familial bonds, especially when history, religion, money and feelings are deeply intertwined." - CinemaAxis
Filmmaker Alex Pitstra has lived his life pulled between cultures. Raised in Holland by his mother, he always longed to know more about his absent Tunisian father. Alex was the result of a holiday romance between 36-year-old divorcee Anneke and 23-year-old Mohsen in Tunisia.
As Alex explores deeper, he learns that his parents' relationship was part of a pattern. During the rise of mass tourism in the 1970s, young Tunisian men from poor families would target European women at beaches and hotels. It was their business — "bezness" in the local parlance. Alex soon discovers he also has a half-sister in Switzerland and a cousin in Sweden.
Along with his half-sister, Alex travels to Tunisia to meet his father. They find Mohsen still full of the charms that once enticed their mothers. But navigating the cultural tensions between his Muslim faith, attitudes towards women, economic disadvantages, and checkered past proves challenging. In filming over a long period of time, Alex is able to create a nuanced portrait, weaving a novelistic storyline that reveals deep cultural differences. As he probes his own motives and contradictions, as well as those held by others, Bezness as Usual becomes a sensitive exploration of unexpected consequences, and a life torn between two inherently different, yet equally assertive cultures.