Nineteenth and twentieth century French Orientalists notoriously fetishized the Maghribi "harem," or the "world of women," projecting their own culturally mediated fantasies onto a sexualized Other within a colonial context that consistently manipulated the status of women. Contemporary Tunisian artists' treatment of the harem thus serves as a nexus for the examination of post-colonial gendered and national identities, along with a tempered subversion of Western portrayals of sexualized and subjugated women. In this paper, I examine the semi-autobiographical artistic rememberings of the "world of women" by several Tunisian filmmakers and authors born in the independence era. I argue that these particular Tunisian artists' depictions may subvert not only indigenous patriarchy but also colonial domination, itself expressed through fantastical representations of the harem in Orientalist art and postcards. In particular, I undertake a comparison of Orientalist postcards' treatment and Tunisian artists' portrayal of the "world of women" with respect to child socialization, formation under and through patriarchy, and sensuality and sexuality. I treat the following films, released from 1987, the year of the "great change" following Ben Ali's bloodless coup, through 2007: "Halfaouine, l'enfant des terrasses," by F?rid Boughedir (1990); "Les Silences du palais," and "La Saison des hommes," by Moufida Tlatli (2000); and "La Boote magique," by Ridha B hi (2002). I also draw parallels with two books, also published under Ben Ali: one originally in Arabic and translated into French, "Zaynab ou Les Br ches de la mamoire," by Aroussia Nalouti (2005 [1995]), and one in French, "Le Paradis des Femmes," by Ali Blcheur (2006). Post-colonial, "modernizing" Tunisia is a challenging context in which to produce art. That artists create these images of the 'world of women' within an environment where funding is limited and funding bodies have historically been first and foremost political organizations with powerful agendas, complicates the broad "value" of their rememberings; indeed, who is their audiencei Throughout the country, movie theatres are few, while pirated DVDs are cheap, numerous and often foreign; censorship, including self-censorship, is widespread. While Tunisians may wish to see "real life" in the few Tunisian movies that are released every year, many say that the socially critical stance of Tunisian films paints an unrealistic, even backwards image of their country. These threads make Tunisian writers' and filmmakers' contributions to the Tunisian social imaginary, and to the global image of the situation of Tunisian women, both more precious, and more problematic.