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Staging humor in a mosque? Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania's new film "Sheikh's Watermelons" opens the 14th Panorama des Cinémas du Maghreb et du Moyen-Orient (PCMMO) on Tuesday, April 2nd.
In recent years, with original and insolent subjects, treated in XXL on the big screen, the Tunisian cinema makes talk about him, in the Tunisian society and with the charts of the biggest film festivals in the world. The Festival, which runs until April 20 in Saint-Denis, Paris and Seine-Saint-Denis, brings together about twenty Tunisian directors' films to offer the public a great focus in Tunisia, enriched by round tables and a day studies. Interview with Emna Mrabet, filmmaker, author, researcher and specialist in Tunisian cinema who collaborated as an expert on Maghreb cinema at this 2019 edition.
RFI : The Cinema Panorama of the Maghreb and the Middle East (PCMMO) devotes this year a great focus to Tunisian cinema. What is its particularity today ?
Emna Mrabet : From the point of view of production, since the revolution in 2011, the number of films produced has multiplied by ten. In the early 2000s, there was a great period of stagnation when President Ben Ali was still in power, with censorship, political stagnation, political lockdown. The arrival of the parables also provoked a disinterest of the public for the cinema. The public no longer followed the Tunisian production on the big screen. Since the revolution we also note the arrival of young directors and especially young directors including Kaouther Ben Hania, Leyla Bouzid or Raja Amari - even if the latter had already made films before the revolution, for example Red Satin , in 2001.
► Read also: Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania: " Fight or go crazy "
Was there also a diversification of styles ?
Yes, it goes from the experimental film to the author like Ala Eddine Slim's The Last of Us (2016), to big historical productions like Salma Baccar's El Jaida (2017), which made 100,000 entries in 2018, which is a very good figure for Tunisia. Not to mention the arrival of two horror films, a genre so far not exploited by Tunisian cinematography, with Dachra [ selected at the Mostra de Venise, ed ], by Abdelhamid Bouchnak. What is also particular, it is a new breath, the interest aroused with the public for the cinema. Today, in Tunisia, the "blockbusters" are Tunisian films. Tunisians want to see each other, to see actors they know and producers and distributors see a real windfall.
Tunisian filmmakers won selections and prizes at the international level: Leyla Bouzid at the Venice Film Festival, Mohamed Ben Attia at the Berlinale, Kaouther Ben Hania at the Cannes Film Festival, Mahmoud Ben Mahmoud in Cairo, Carthage and Fespaco. Above all, they often address very sensitive topics : abortion, rape, radicalization ... In his new film, Sheikh's Watermelons , Kaouther Ben Hania even dares to situate his comedy in a mosque, coexist cinematographic humor and religion. This freedom of tone, is it also a particularity of Tunisian cinema ?
Yes indeed. If there is one thing on which everyone would agree [ after the revolution ], it is this freedom of expression, this freedom of tone. The specialty of Kaouther Ben Hania's cinema is that critical spirit of sarcasm and humor found in Le Challat de Tunis and his latest films. This use of the weapon of humor as a critical weapon also in relation to polemical subjects, such as religion, etc. This freedom of tone, we can date it in this post-revolutionary phase, but already before, there was a freedom of tone, something apart in the Tunisian cinema. It is a cinema that dares to raise taboos. Of course, under dictatorship, this was done in another way. We talked about very taboo things, but filigree.
You talk about a new public craze for movies. Do viewers find enough cinemas in Tunisia ?
The film sector in Tunisia is experiencing a real restructuring phase, particularly through the construction of the new National Center for Cinema and Image (CNCI). Since his birth after the revolution, he has been trying to restructure the sector. We still suffer today from the closure of the rooms and the lack of rooms. But today, we are rather in an ascending phase, with about 17 active rooms, eleven of which are in Tunis. It is mainly the regions that are suffering from lack of rooms, even though five additional rooms have opened in the regions. The other positive point: the CNCI wants to promote Tunisian cinema especially in the region. Rooms of the Maisons de la culture have been equipped with DCP [ standard digital format for a copy of film, ed ] to facilitate the circulation of Tunisian production in the region. After, we can note the opening [in December 2018] of the first Pathé multiplex in Africa, in Tunis, with eight very well equipped rooms.
► Listen also: Fatwa, by Mahmoud Ben Mahmoud
To conquer the Tunisian youth for cinema, are digital platforms and Netflix real competitors or is it completely different to go to the cinema ?
A real study should be done to answer this question. The lack of rooms was also related to the problem of piracy. The films circulated outside the classical circuits. But Tunisian cinema is much more fragile than the big American productions. As previews are only in Tunisia, it is less easy to hack Tunisian films. As for Netflix, it made its debut in Tunisia in 2016, but a priori the tariffs are much too high for the Tunisian public and I think the experience of the movie theater is still a singular experience. But retailers have still seen a drop in 20-year-olds or young students, but they are trying to bring this young audience back to the cinema by also working with school children, etc. to have an education of the look.
► 14th Panorama of Cinemas in the Maghreb and the Middle East (PCMMO), from April 2 to 20, in Saint-Denis, Paris and Seine-Saint-Denis.
► Emna Mrabet will present her film At the Dawn of Our Dreams , on Tunisian post-revolutionary youth, Saturday, April 6 and Thursday, April 11.
► Wednesday, April 3 at 14:15 at the cinema screen in Saint-Denis: round table "Women and transgression in Tunisian cinema".
► Tuesday, April 9: study day at the cinema screen in Saint-Denis: "New film dynamics in the Maghreb and the Middle East."