Néjia Ben Mabrouk

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Néjia Ben Mabrouk (born July 1, 1949) is a Tunisian screenwriter and director, best known for the award-winning film Sama and for her work on the documentary The Gulf War… What Next?

She was born in El Oudiane, Tunisia, and grew up in Sfax, where she became familiar with European cinema. While she dreamed of writing stories rather than making films—partly because there were few women filmmakers at the time—she pursued education in French at Tunis University before finances forced her to leave. She later studied filmmaking at INSAS in Brussels, starting in 1972, with a focus on critical documentary film.

For her graduation project, she wrote and directed At Your Service in 1976, then trained as a trainee for RTBF. From 1979 to 1980 she began writing her first full-length feature, Sama (The Trace). The film was completed in 1982 but released only in 1988 after a dispute with the production company. Sama, which contains autobiographical elements, follows a young Tunisian girl who seeks an education and ends up exiled in Europe; it won the Caligari Prize at the 1989 Berlin International Film Festival.

Ben Mabrouk also contributed a 15-minute segment, In Search of Chaima, to the documentary The Gulf War… What Next? (1991), exploring the impact of war on women and children. She wrote the screenplay for her second feature, Nuit à Tunis (Night in Tunis).