“Let’s dream, live!” This is the slogan of the 32nd session of Carthage Cinematographic Days (JCC) which opened on October 30, 2021 in Tunis. After a 2020 edition marked by “the stagnation imposed by Covid-19”, the JCC “come back in force”, underline the organizers of the film festival which highlights Arab and African cinemas on Tunisian soil. In total, 750 films including 200 feature lengths feed the 11 sections of this 2021 edition, representing 45 countries including 28 African and 17 Arab. “We are renewing this meeting with more joy, liveliness, innovations and discoveries”, assured Ridha Behi, the general director of the festival.
Twelve fictions are in the running for the Golden Tanit, The Gravedigger’s Wife of Khadar Ayderus Ahmed, Finnish filmmaker of Somali origin who won the Yennenga Gold Standard to the last edition of Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou (Fespaco). Feathers Omar El Zohairy (Egypt), Amira by Mohamed Diab (Egypt), Argu Omar Belkacemi (Algeria), Public Toilet Africa (Amansa tiafi) by Kofi Ofosu-Yeboah (Ghana), High and loud by Nabil Ayouch (Morocco, in competition at the last Cannes Film Festival), This is not Burial, it’s a Ressurection by Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese (Losotho), Grandmother DixNeuf and the Secret of the Soviet by Joào Ribeiro (Mozambique), Only the winds by Karim Kassem (Lebanon) are also competing for this award. Like three Tunisian productions: Golden butterfly by Abdelhamid Bouchnak, A story of love and desire by Leyla Bouzid – who has just won the Bronze State at Fespaco – and Insurrection by Jilani Saadi.
The jury for fictional feature films is chaired by Italian producer Enzo Porcelli. At his side, we find the director Gessica Géneus (Haiti) to whom we owe Freda, a first sensitive feature film around three portraits of Haitian women in a country marked by violence presented in Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival in July 2021 and recently awarded the Silver Standard at Fespaco. Angolan actor Hoji Fortuna, Egyptian film critic Tarek El Shennawi, Moroccan filmmaker Daoud Aoulad-Syad, Iranian director Ahmed Bahrami and Tunisian journalist Soufiane Ben Farhat are the other members of this jury.
For this 32nd edition, Belgian and Libyan cinemas are in the spotlight. Two monographs are also devoted to Tunisian filmmakers Hamouda Ben Halima and Moufida Tlatli, who died last February. The official poster for this 2021 edition is a tribute to the filmmaker whose memory was saluted during the opening ceremony of the JCC. Signed by Tunisian artist Anis Ben Ammar, we see Hend Sabri – “our child star”, specifies a JCC press release –, in The Silences of the Palace (1994) by Moufida Tlatli, the first role in the cinema of the Tunisian actress who won in 2019 the prize for the best female interpretation in Noura dreams of his compatriot, Hinde Boujemaa.
After the prisons and the regions, the JCC are invited this year to the barracks. Other novelties, two awards which bear the names of activist Lina Ben Mhenni, figure of the Tunisian revolution who died in 2020 and Lebanese filmmaker Sadek Sabbah, have been created. See you on November 6 for the winners of this 32nd edition.