UK PREMIERE
Making of
Maltings cinema
Tuesday 25 21.00
Tunisia/France/Germany/Morocco, 2007,
115 min
Colour. DigiBeta
Arabic, with English subtitles
Sugg. cert. 18
dir/scr: Nouri Bouzid
prod: Abdelaziz Ben Mlouka
dop: Michel Baudour
editor: Karim Hamouda
sound: Hechemi Joulak, Michel Ben Said
music: Nejib Cherradi
cast: Lotfi Ebdelli, Lotfi Dziri, Afef Ben
Mahmoud, Fatima Ben Saidane,
Foued Litayem, Helmi Dridi
production company: CTV Production
international sales: CTV Production
Director’s profile:
Writer–director Nouri Bouzid was born in Sfax, Tunisia, in 1945. He graduated from Brussels’ INSAS film school in 1972 but his career was cut short by five years’ imprisonment as a member of the Tunisian Socialist Studies and Action Group (the GEAST). His first feature as a director, Rih Essed (Man of Ashes), was selected for the 1986 Cannes Film Festival – as were his next three films. During the 1990s, he collaborated on some of Tunisian cinema’s most influential films, including Férid Boughedir’s Halfaouine and Moufida Tlatli’s The Silences of the Palace. Awarded the prestigious French cultural honour of the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres medal in 1992, he now teaches at the EDAC – the cinema school he founded in Tunisia in 1994. Nouri Bouzid is also a published poet.
Director’s filmography:
2006 Making of
2002 Araïs Al Teïn (Clay Dolls)
1996 Bent Familia
1992 Bezness (Business)
1991 Sekatat Sheherazade’an el Kalam el M (short film segment in The Gulf War…
What Next?)
1988 Sfayah Min Dhahab (Golden Horseshoes)
1986 Rih Essed (Man of Ashes)
Tunis, 2003. Bahta is a charismatic young man whose home life, despite his mother’s fierce love, is defined by his violent relationship with his father. A school dropout with few prospects, he dreams of getting the hell out of the country and emigrating to Europe, but recent historical events have made life as a clandestine Muslim immigrant more difficult than ever. He bides his time by hanging out with a gang of similarly disaffected youths and indulging his passion for rap and breakdancing, but his restlessness – aided in no small part by his misplaced pride in what he considers to be virility and courage – leads him to increasingly rebellious behaviour. Falling foul of the law for a series of petty crimes brings him to the attention of a circle of men who, under the pretence of providing him with the emotional support and spiritual guidance he needs, set out to indoctrinate and radicalise him.
Half-way through a ‘lesson’ delivered by the fundamentalists’ leader, Bahta refuses to play along. Except this is not Bahta’s reaction, but that of Lotfi Abdelli, the real-life actor who plays him. He challenges Nouri Bouzid, the director of the film we are watching, and demands to know more about his character’s motivations. Their exchanges sporadically punctuate the rest of the film, bringing a certain distance to the proceedings but throwing into relief the urgency of the debate over religious extremism and terrorism. Where the film falls, perhaps, is in the eager didacticism of this stylistic device, but Bouzid’s intentions are laudable, as is his genuine belief in the role fictional cinema has to play in addressing these issues.