The feature and short film jury is chaired by Moroccan director Mohammed Abderrahman Tazi whose film “Fatema, The Unforgettable Sultana” on the feminist sociologist Fatema Mernissi who died in 2015, is screened as an opening. For the documentaries, the jury will be chaired by the Malagasy producer, Marie-Clémence Andiamonta Paes.
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The 33rd edition of the Carthage Film Festival began on Saturday in Tunisia, for a week of screening of films from Arab and African countries, including sessions organized as every year in several prisons in the country.
170 films will be offered until November 5 in 22 cinemas in Tunis and other cities, at the rate of 60 screenings a day as part of the JCC (Carthage Cinematographic Days), the oldest of African festivals, created in 1966 , which became annual in 2014. They represent some forty Arab and African countries, including Saudi Arabia, which is the guest of honor at the prestigious JCC with four films.
The festival will also focus on Palestinian cinema through a dozen films produced since 1969 which “immortalize the struggles of the Palestinian people and their struggle to reclaim their homeland“, according to the direction of the festival.
Twelve feature films are in official competition and as many short films. In the list, we find the film under the figs by the Tunisian Erige Sehiri, which deals with romantic relationships during the picking period in a Tunisian village. A film noticed at the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes.
Also of note in the official selection, the Egyptian feature film Sharaf (honor) by director Samir Nasr, based on the novel of the same title by Sonallah Ibrahim, which paints a bleak picture of Egyptian society through the narrow frame of a prison.
Among the sub-Saharan films, the JCC have selected among others The Pantheon of Joy by Beninese director Jean Odoutan, a “musical comedy” about an orphan amazed by the construction of a villa by a “big brother” who made his fortune in Europe.
The festival has also programmed workshops on the preservation of an African cinematographic heritage. “in danger”, as well as on the difficulties of distributing African and Arab productions. Three grand prizes will be awarded in the four main sections of the Festival (feature and short films, short and feature documentaries): the Tanit d’or, d’argent and de bronze.