Omi Mouna

Omi Mouna: Or, My Fantastic Encounter with My Great Grandmother 
Mohsen El Gharbi  
Tiohtià:ke (Montréal) 

Inspired by real life events, Omi Mouna is a tragicomic play that the actor, Mohsen El Gharbi, improvises every evening. A man investigates the source of the violence he suffered as a child. Dominated by fear of having inherited his father’s brutality, Mohsen goes to Tunisia to film his great-grandmother, Omi Mouna, and retrace the history of her family. He finds himself thrown back to when she was a young girl, martyred by a tyrannical husband. Mohsen then becomes an invisible witness of dramatic events.

Inspired by fragments of memories, Mohsen, like an archaeologist, reconstructs the significant events in the life of Omi Mouna and discovers a long history of women's resilience and struggle. The monodrama unfolds on a bare stage, where the actor, by his acting alone, manages to resuscitate a whole world. This story comes to us with humour, self-mockery, and tenderness. Mohsen El Gharbi, playing a multitude of characters, immerses us in a fantastic and funny world that can also hurt. Omi Mouna is a poetic mural that tries to understand the violence that perpetuates in the world.