{"id":30899,"date":"2026-05-22T10:03:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T07:03:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/msfilmfestival.fi\/?post_type=movies&p=30899"},"modified":"2026-05-22T18:11:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T15:11:19","slug":"the-little-sister","status":"publish","type":"movies","link":"https:\/\/msfilmfestival.fi\/en\/movies\/the-little-sister\/","title":{"rendered":"The Little Sister"},"content":{"rendered":"

We are large, we contain multitudes, as the poet Walt Whitman might say (in Arvo Turtiainen\u2019s translation). In film characters, multidimensional humanity is often reduced to a two-dimensional type \u2013 sometimes intentionally and effectively so \u2013 but this does not happen to the protagonist of <\/span>Kuopus<\/span><\/i> (<\/span>The Little Sister<\/span><\/i>). Seventeen-year-old Fatima is a devout Muslim, a member of a family of North African origin, a resident of a Parisian suburb, a little sister, a football player, one of the guys, an upwardly mobile student, a young woman devoted to love and struggling with her sexual orientation. The lead actress, Nadia Melliti \u2013 a complete newcomer to acting \u2013 naturally brings to the screen all the intersecting and conflicting experiences contained in Fatima\u2019s story. Melliti\u2019s entire presence changes depending on whether Fatima is speaking with her conservative boyfriend or stepping into a lesbian bar.<\/span><\/p>\n

Writer-director Hafsia Herzi does not view her protagonist as a psychological case study, but as the trembling beginning of an adult life, full of desire and fear. Herzi grins mischievously from behind the editing table: the image cuts directly from a flirtatious body to the minaret of a mosque.<\/span><\/p>\n

Based on the autobiographical novel by Fatima Daas, the film premiered in the competition section of the Cannes Film Festival and won the festival\u2019s Queer Palm, a prize awarded to an outstanding LGBTQI+ film.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kaisu Tervonen<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We are large, we contain multitudes, as the poet Walt Whitman might say (in Arvo Turtiainen\u2019s translation). In film characters, multidimensional humanity is often reduced to a two-dimensional type \u2013 sometimes intentionally and effectively so \u2013 but this does not happen to the protagonist of Kuopus (The Little Sister). Seventeen-year-old Fatima is a devout Muslim,… View Article<\/a>","protected":false},"featured_media":30897,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-30899","movies","type-movies","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","filters-pre-premiere","filters-puhuttu-tai-tekstitetty-suomeksi-en","filters-tekstitetty-ruotsiksi-en"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Little Sister — Midnight Sun Film Festival<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We are large, we contain multitudes, as the poet Walt Whitman might say (in Arvo Turtiainen\u2019s translation). In film characters, multidimensional humanity is often reduced to a two-dimensional type \u2013 sometimes intentionally and effectively so \u2013 but this does not happen to the protagonist of Kuopus (The Little Sister).\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/msfilmfestival.fi\/en\/movies\/the-little-sister\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Little Sister — Midnight Sun Film Festival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We are large, we contain multitudes, as the poet Walt Whitman might say (in Arvo Turtiainen\u2019s translation). 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