São Paulo – Illegal immigration, the theme of the next film by the Tunisian filmmaker Raja Amari, could not be more current. Last week, the European Union passed an agreement allowing the temporary restriction of people flow between the countries of the bloc, aiming to stem immigrant inflow, in particular from North Africa, and yielding to the pressure of the Old Continent’s Right Wing.
Raja, born in 1971, in Tunis, represents a new generation of Arab cinema and is in São Paulo to attend the 6th Arab World Cinema Exhibition, which should end on this Wednesday (29th), in São Paulo, but will continue in Brasília and then in Belo Horizonte. She has been invited to give the festival’s closing address, after the screening of her latest film, “Buried Secrets,” from 2009.
The filmmaker seized the occasion and paid a visit to the headquarters of the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce, one of the exhibition’s sponsors, along with the director for Culture and Science at the Institute of Arab Culture (Icarabe, in the Portuguese acronym), which organized the event, Soraya Ismaili, Nagila Guimarães, one of the festival’s curators, and the director of National and International Relations at the institute, José Farhat.
Presently, Raja is working to raise funds for her new film. Just like in Brazil, obtaining resources to make movies in North Africa is not an easy task. She claims that “Buried Secrets” took three years to make and is a relatively low-budget flick, at less than 1 million euros.
The filmmaker explains that the industry counts on government support in Tunisia, but that only covers part of the costs, so the producers need to set out raising funds. “Secrets,” for instance, is a French-Tunisian production, even though it is set in the African country and spoken in Arabic.
She says Tunisian cinema cannot be called an “industry” per se, because three to four productions are made each year, which may be called “auteur films,” but have good international visibility, because they are featured in several festivals and manage to be shown in commercial theatre circuits, mainly in Europe.
Tunisia
Due to the political situation in Tunisia, which is under the rule of a provisional government, after the fall of dictator Zine El Abdine Ben Ali, it is not yet known what the government’s cultural policy will be from now on. “Right now, we are waiting for the elections, we are standing still until we know what will happen,” she said of the expectation that hovers above the Tunisian people. “Now, [the film industry] is also standing still until we learn what the government’s policy for culture will be,” she added.
The elections are scheduled for October and, according to Raja, it will be the first truly free one in the country. Despite the uncertainty regarding what will come next and the feeling of anxiety, she guarantees that there is “much enthusiasm” among the population.
Movement
The type of film made nowadays in Tunisia reflects a broader movement in the Middle East and North Africa. According to the filmmaker, the new Arab cinema brings more “personal” views of its makers, and is less commercial.
In the past, the region’s industry was dominated by Egypt, with its vast production of comedies and other popular genres. Now, according to Raja, Egypt itself, plus Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia, are in the cutting edge of regional cinema. As in Brazil, however, regional productions are not necessarily the most commercially successful, but rather the North American ones, as well as the French ones, in the case of the Maghreb countries.
According to Nagila Guimarães, one of the exhibition’s curators, Arab production, however, is growing in both quantity and quality. Over the last few years, she took part in the organization of the Abu Dhabi Film Festival, in the United Arab Emirates, in which half the films screened are required to have been made in the region.
International festivals are proliferating in the Arab world. One of the most traditional is the Carthage Festival, in Tunisia, but others have been created recently in Dubai, also in the Emirates, in Doha, Qatar, as well as Abu Dhabi. That, according to Nagila, has boosted the exposure of local productions and attracted the interest of distributing companies.
Soraya, of the Icarabe, guarantees that the 17-film selection made by Nagila, along with the also Tunisian Dora Bouchoucha, has led the program of the festival, which is held for a few years now, to take a “quality leap.” Farhat added that there has been “huge acceptance” on the part of the audience. “We have had packed theatres,” he declared.
The screening of Raja’s film will start at 08:00 pm at Cinemateca Brasileira (www.cinemateca.gov.br) and the debate featuring the filmmaker will take place immediately afterwards. For further information on the festival, go to www.mundoarabe2011.icarabe.org.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
