Leyla Bouzid

I have occasionally observed that some people live up to their names, such as a man I met named Seaborn who was an oceanographer. It appears that Tunisian director/screenwriter Leyla Bouzid’s name also was her destiny. Her first feature film, As I Open My Eyes (2015), takes place in 2010, the year her country experienced the Sidi Bouzid Revolt, named for the city where protests began. By mid-January 2011, the repressive regime of longtime Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was history, and revolts in Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, and Bahrain—collectively comprising the Arab Spring—soon commenced.