Tunisia

Tunisian cinema: straddling Egypt and France 

In 2021, The Man Who Sold His Skin became the first film from Tunisia to be nominated in the Best International Feature Film category at the Oscars. Kaouther Ben Hania, the film's director, is part of a generation of filmmakers who have carved out new thematic spaces in Tunisian cinema in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. Walter Ruggle analyses the special position of the country's small film industry.

For many decades, the film and entertainment capital Cairo as well as Bombay in India dominated the cinema of the Maghreb. Egyptian melodramas, Bollywood epics and their stars continue to be popular. The Arab Spring gave a boost to the local film industry, even though not everything that the young people at the protests after 14 January 2011 hoped for may have materialised. (...)

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Tunisian cinema: straddling Egypt and France 

In 2021, The Man Who Sold His Skin became the first film from Tunisia to be nominated in the Best International Feature Film category at the Oscars. Kaouther Ben Hania, the film's director, is part of a generation of filmmakers who have carved out new thematic spaces in Tunisian cinema in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. Walter Ruggle analyses the special position of the country's small film industry.

For many decades, the film and entertainment capital Cairo as well as Bombay in India dominated the cinema of the Maghreb. Egyptian melodramas, Bollywood epics and their stars continue to be popular. The Arab Spring gave a boost to the local film industry, even though not everything that the young people at the protests after 14 January 2011 hoped for may have materialised. The Jasmine Revolution could not transform all existing power structures in Tunisia, but it was able to topple the Ben Ali regime and open up new spaces. In the preceding years, the country's amazing scenery had served as a backdrop for various international film productions, such as Jesus of Nazareth, Star Wars, Indiana Jones and The English Patient. In the current scenario, it has become possible to make films with greater freedom which are also more socially critical.«Le collier perdu» by Nacer Khemir © trigon-film

The Tunisian film industry's links with Egypt and France go back a long way. After the country gained independence in 1956, the French withdrew but their influence lingers on in the language, migration, cultural ties and in a burden of guilt that is compensated for with financial aid – including for film production. There is hardly any Tunisian film that is made without French funding. Of course, the reasons are not entirely altruistic because France also benefits at every level – from utilisation of infrastructure to profits from the sale of film rights. In terms of cinema infrastructure in a country of 12 million people, many of the 41 film theatres in Tunisia are French-owned and operated from Paris, like the first multiplex in Tunis opened by Gaumont-Pathé in 2018.

Filmmakers from Maghreb countries come to Paris to study, gain experience in French productions and often have two domiciles or even two passports. Some stay and leave their mark on French cinema, like Tunisian-born Abdellatif Kechiche, who makes French films and won the Golden Palm award (La vie d'Adele/Blue is the Warmest Colour, 2013) for France in Cannes. The film’s explicitness about how a man imagines a lesbian relationship would have made it impossible to produce in Tunisia. Some directors narrate romanticised stories of the country of their parents, like Manele Labidi in Un divan à Tunis/Arab Blues (2019). Others take up topics such as the situation of young people of Arab origin in France, for example Mehdi Charef (Le Thé au Harem d‘Archimède/Tea in the Harem, 1985) and Leyla Bouzid, who explores the difficult coming of age of a young Muslim man in Paris and the dichotomy of growing up in a religious atmosphere at home that is at odds with the outside environment in her Cannes-premiered film Une histoire d’amour et de désir (A Tale of Love and Desire).

Leyla Bouzid, born in 1984, comes from a family of artists. Her father, Nouri Bouzid, one of Tunisia's most acclaimed film directors, addressed the issue of sex tourism in his country way back in 1992 with films like Bezness. His daughter Leila studied film direction in Paris. She shot her graduation film Soubresauts shortly before the revolution in Tunis and her first feature film À peine j'ouvre mes yeux (As I Open My Eyes) in 2014, during the newfound freedom that followed. The story is set on the eve of the revolution but would have been impossible to produce earlier. It is a vibrant portrait of a young woman who challenges male-dominated structures and seems to succeed before falling flat on reality.

Among the Maghreb countries, cinema in Tunisia stands out for its large number of women directors. "If we have achieved anything since the revolution, it is being able to speak out," says Ben Hania. This has been liberating because speaking is also an act of unburdening. Born in 1977, she took her first steps in documentary filmmaking (Le challat de Tunis/Challat of Tunis, 2013) and considers this format to be, "symptomatic of the need to return to reality after having been locked up by the dictatorship in a sterile, kitschy and clichéd world."

Ben Hania is clear about her motives: "I wanted to talk about all those women whose voices are not heard." She holds up a mirror to men that depicts the stark social reality. In her first feature film, La belle et la meute/Beauty and the Dogs (2017), she tells the story of a woman raped by two policemen and her travails through a night of futile attempts to file a complaint. The production was supported by the newly set up ministry of culture. The director sees this a strong symbol of "support, a sign that things in Tunisia are changing at a time of widespread pessimism in the country."

Conversations with her and other filmmakers from Tunisia bring out how films made in recent years are viewed: cinema is seen to be opening a valve. There is now an opportunity to recapture life with stories that are drawn from it, dreams that it inspires and fears that haunt people. This doesn't imply there were no films worth watching before 2011. Some of the films mentioned were Férid Boughedir's Halfaouine/Boy of the Terraces (1990), a coming-of-age story, and the depiction of a mother-daughter relationship and the contradictions in how women are viewed in a patriarchal society in Satin Rouge/Red Satin (2002) by Raja Amari. Other films were those that followed the daily rhythms of family life or addressed taboos, such as abuse in the family that had no consequences for the man but led to the woman being ostracised (Fatma by Khaled Ghorbal, 2001). Still others, like the poet Nacer Khemir, adopted the old Arabic tradition of storytelling and moved in timeless, mystical spaces narrating of the search for concepts of love and of dervishes (Bab'Aziz, 2005).

After the revolution, filmmakers began pushing the boundaries of content and form: stories of a man who must decide between two women who represent different worlds (Hedi by Mohamed Ben Attia, 2016), or of a deserter, who retreats to a forest and meets a pregnant woman fleeing her home (Tlamess by Ala Eddine Slim, 2019). For many, Moufida Tlatli, who died in 2021, was a trailblazer. She worked initially as an editor for half the directors in the Arab world before becoming the first female director in the region to shoot a feature film in 1994, Les Silences du Palais (The Silences of the Palace). In her film, one of the highlights of Tunisian cinema, the director takes us on a journey into the dark underbelly of society where apart from silence (of the women) it is chaifa – fear – that shapes events.

If filmmakers like Ben Hania are not afraid today and can break this silence, they have Tlatli to thank. The Man Who Sold His Skin, the first Tunisian film to make it to the final round of the Oscars in 2021, is a stirring testimony to how this new freedom is being explored. Ben Hania tells the story of a Syrian refugee who is stuck in Jordan and manages to get to Europe as a living work of art. As a commercial product it is possible for him to achieve what he cannot as a human being.

© Walter Ruggle, 2021