Red Path review — a severed head, football and an awkward romance

There's a lot going on in this grim Tunisian drama and I'm not sure that all of it works. It was inspired by a horrifying real-life incident from 2015 when Islamic State psychopaths beheaded a teenage shepherd on a remote part of Mount Mghila and then forced his cousin to carry the severed head back to his village as a gruesome warning sign.
• Read more film reviews, guides about what to watch and interviews
In the powerful opening scenes here, the shepherd Nizar (Yassine Samouni) and his cousin Achraf (Ali Helali) are pictured traversing the Tunisian landscape, climbing Mount Mghila and savouring the soulful beauty around them. 'Millions of years ago this place belonged to the fish,' Nizar says after cooling off in a mountain pool. The director, Lotfi Achour, then cuts to dramatic widescreen shots of undulating sedimentary rock, as if to provide comment on geological time and human impermanence. At this point Isis attack, Achraf is beaten unconscious and Nizar is beheaded off-camera. Then follows a mighty jump-scare, when Achraf awakes to see his decapitated cousin on the ground bedside him.
And after that it gets strange. Achraf carries the head around in a sports bag, initially unable to reveal the truth to Nizar's loving family. He plays football with the locals, hiding the head in a tree, and it begins to feel like the Raymond Carver short story So Much Water So Close to Home, in which the friends go fishing despite discovering a dead body.
There is an awkward romantic element too, as Achraf inconceivably starts crushing on Nizar's former girlfriend. Once Achraf comes clean and delivers the head, there's a wildly absurd scene in which Nizar's father has to remove a shelf from the family freezer to fit his son's skull inside. And then Nizar's ghost appears to Achraf to partake in vaguely philosophical conversations. None of this quite coheres as a single storytelling vision, however — all that remains is the horror.★★☆☆☆
15, 101min
In cinemas from Jun 20
Times+ members can enjoy two-for-one cinema tickets at Everyman each Wednesday. Visit thetimes.com/timesplus to find out more.
Which films have you enjoyed at the cinema recently? Let us know in the comments and follow @timesculture to read the latest reviews

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Times

8 hours ago

• Times

Red Path review — a severed head, football and an awkward romance

There's a lot going on in this grim Tunisian drama and I'm not sure that all of it works. It was inspired by a horrifying real-life incident from 2015 when Islamic State psychopaths beheaded a teenage shepherd on a remote part of Mount Mghila and then forced his cousin to carry the severed head back to his village as a gruesome warning sign. • Read more film reviews, guides about what to watch and interviews In the powerful opening scenes here, the shepherd Nizar (Yassine Samouni) and his cousin Achraf (Ali Helali) are pictured traversing the Tunisian landscape, climbing Mount Mghila and savouring the soulful beauty around them. 'Millions of years ago this place belonged to the fish,' Nizar says after cooling off in a mountain pool. The director, Lotfi Achour, then cuts to dramatic widescreen shots of undulating sedimentary rock, as if to provide comment on geological time and human impermanence. At this point Isis attack, Achraf is beaten unconscious and Nizar is beheaded off-camera. Then follows a mighty jump-scare, when Achraf awakes to see his decapitated cousin on the ground bedside him. And after that it gets strange. Achraf carries the head around in a sports bag, initially unable to reveal the truth to Nizar's loving family. He plays football with the locals, hiding the head in a tree, and it begins to feel like the Raymond Carver short story So Much Water So Close to Home, in which the friends go fishing despite discovering a dead body. There is an awkward romantic element too, as Achraf inconceivably starts crushing on Nizar's former girlfriend. Once Achraf comes clean and delivers the head, there's a wildly absurd scene in which Nizar's father has to remove a shelf from the family freezer to fit his son's skull inside. And then Nizar's ghost appears to Achraf to partake in vaguely philosophical conversations. None of this quite coheres as a single storytelling vision, however — all that remains is the horror.★★☆☆☆ 15, 101min In cinemas from Jun 20 Times+ members can enjoy two-for-one cinema tickets at Everyman each Wednesday. Visit to find out more. Which films have you enjoyed at the cinema recently? Let us know in the comments and follow @timesculture to read the latest reviews

The Guardian

4 days ago

• The Guardian

Red Path review – Tunisian drama tells traumatic story of Islamic State's horrific cruelty

A low cloud of misery and horror settles on this sombre movie from Tunisian writer-director Lotfi Achour, inspired by a brutal event in his country from 2015. A teenage shepherd called Mabrouk Soltani was murdered and beheaded on Mount Mghila in central Tunisia by members of Jund al-Khilafah ('soldiers of the caliphate'), the Tunisian branch of Islamic State, which habitually hides out in that remote, rugged region. They videoed their grotesque homicide, claiming the boy was an army spy and ordered his terrified 14-year-old cousin, who was with him, to carry the severed head back to his village as a brutal 'message' – and this boy obeyed, in a stricken state of trauma that can only be guessed at. This horrifying event was to assume the status of national scandal in Tunisia two years later when the victim's elder brother was also murdered by IS in the same place and on the same pretext. (Four jihadis were convicted in 2019 and another 45 in absentia.) Achour's film centres on the first event, while anticipating the second. Achraf (Ali Helali) goes up the mountain with his older cousin Nizar (Yassine Samouni), who brings his goats there because it is the only place with water for the herd to drink – and because it is beautiful. The nightmarish attack ensues and the village goes into deep shock; the head is kept in a refrigerator and despite the obvious danger of another attack, Nizar's brother grimly resolves to lead a party of volunteers, including Achraf, back up into the mountain to recover the rest of the body so Nizar can be given a proper burial. All the while the heartless and prurient press gather at his home. The tone seems to be balanced between tragic and macabre, and at first it seems as if Achraf will carry the head in the bag back into his community and, in a state of profound shock, might even go into a state of denial about what has happened. That isn't the case – or not exactly. Once the awful truth is disclosed, he has to talk to the girl with whom poor Nizar was hopelessly and unrequitedly in love, and this trauma brings her together with Achraf. He also has hallucinatory encounters and conversations with Nizar, which I think don't entirely work and bring the film close to a kind of emollient fantasy dimension. However the movie is well acted, and honestly attempts to encompass the unbearable grief suffered by the family, although the bizarre element of mystery and the hateful political malice of IS, particularly with the second murder, can't really be represented. Red Path is in cinemas from 20 June.

Daily Mirror

11-06-2025

• Daily Mirror

Camilla makes surprise book awards appearance and shares holiday reading list

Queen Camilla dropped into an event ahead of the 30th annual Women's Prize for Fiction awards, where she met authors as well as book lovers and let them know what she had been reading The Queen has surprised shortlisted authors and book lovers ahead of the Women's Prize for Fiction's 30th annual awards ceremony. Avid reader Camilla dropped in at the event's open-air venue in Bloomsbury, central London today to congratulate finalists and hail the founders of the award for having "brought the female voice from the margins of the literary world to its very centre". Founder and author Kate Mosse, who invited Her Majesty to attend the anniversary event, said her presence had been kept secret: 'Nobody knew, which is why people were so surprised. If you're going to lay on the Queen, if it's not Beyoncé, it's got to be the actual Queen.' ‌ ‌ She added: "You can tell when someone has read your book genuinely and when they've been given a briefing sheet. And she's a reader, a genuine reader, and someone who genuinely champions women." Camilla arrived unannounced at the pop-up venue in Bedford Square and was greeted by Kate and Women's Prize executive director Claire Shanahan. In the Green Room area, she was introduced to the six authors shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction, including Nussaibah Younis, whose novel Fundamentally tells the story of an academic who travels to Iraq to deradicalise a teenage Islamic State recruit. She joked that the competition was stiff between finalists, telling Camilla: 'We are trying to take each other out. The Champagne glasses are spiked – there could be one less standing by this afternoon!' The Queen recognised Yael van der Wouden, author of The Safekeep, telling her: 'We met at the Booker [Prize]. Good to see you again.' And turning to Tell Me Everything writer Elizabeth Strout, she said: 'I have read your books, they are lovely. Good luck to you all,' she told the group. 'I shall be thinking of you.' Camilla was then introduced to the six shortlisted authors for the Women's Prize for Non-Fiction, including singer-songwriter and rapper Neneh Cherry, whose debut book, A Thousand Threads tells the story of her career. ‌ 'I wrote a memoir, a book about my life,' she told Camilla. 'It took more than four years to write it and I'm still slightly recovering. It's out there now, I have let it go, it's out in the world.' The Queen told Claire Mulley, whose Agent Zo tells the story of the Polish wartime resistance fighter Elzbieta Zawakca: 'I think I will put that on my holiday reading list.' And she delighted author Chloe Dalton by telling her she had read her memoir Raising Hare about swapping the rat race for a rural life. 'Thank you so much, I am honoured,' she replied. ‌ The Queen was then reunited with Girl, Woman, Other author Bernardine Evaristo, winner of The Women's Prize Outstanding Contribution Award – a special one-off award for the 30th anniversary year. There was a quick stop off in a pop-up Waterstones tent, where authors had been signing their books and Camilla was told the bar was kept open late for those queuing to meet their favourite writers. 'Quite right,' she agreed. ‌ Making a speech in the Woolf tent in Bedford Square, Her Majesty said the launch of the women's only prize in 1995 had 'brought the female voice from the margins of the literary world to its very centre,' and she hailed it for having 'transformed the literary landscape for women.' She said: 'Three decades later, your achievements are impressive. Budding authors have benefitted from the wisdom of those who have trodden the same path. Careers have been launched, bestsellers have flown off the shelves into the hands and hearts of the public, and each year you distribute 3,000 books to people in need. And you have forged a community of 16 million readers who love, in your own words, 'original, accessible and brilliant' literature. 'In short, you have transformed the literary landscape for women. If I might return to Virginia Woolf – who never won any kind of award for her work, but who did have this tent named after her – and misquote her, 'A woman must have a prize of her own if she is to write fiction. 'Happy birthday, congratulations and thank you to every one of you who has been involved over the last 30 years. And the best of British luck to all our wonderful finalists tomorrow!'