Los Angeles [US], July 23 : Tunisian director-actor Nejib Belkadhi will be seen in a key role in director Kays Mejri's psychological thriller "The Sleeping Grotto"
As per Variety, 'Sleeping Grotto' finds "estranged brothers Youssef (Nidhal Essadi) and Idris (Montassar Tabben), who has travelled from Quebec with his wife Elissa (Joslyn Rogers), reunited at their remote family home in the forest of Ain Draham in northern Tunisia, where a dark, long-buried family secret surfaces."
Belkadhi and Khouloud Jlidi round out the key cast. The film is the second feature from Mejri, who wrote the script with Quebec filmmaker and actor Joslyn Rogers. The Canadian producers are Bahija Essoussi and Samuel Gagnon of Montreal's Objectif 9, which in recent years has been proactively scouting Arab-Canadian filmmakers to broaden the scope of their short and feature offerings.
"We found out about Kays, who showed us a short he had made, which blew us away, and he mentioned he was working on 'Sleeping Grotto' and had a producer lined up in Tunisia," Objectif 9's Gagnon told Variety.
The Tunisian producers are Yasmine Dhoukar of Clandestino and Alexander Nass of Tunisian International Studios. The project has received a production grant from the Tunisian government.