S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 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\u2019s Right Wing.<\/p>\n
Raja, born in 1971, in Tunis, represents a new generation of Arab cinema and is in S\u00e3o Paulo to attend the 6th Arab World Cinema Exhibition, which should end on this Wednesday (29th), in S\u00e3o Paulo, but will continue in Bras\u00edlia and then in Belo Horizonte. She has been invited to give the festival\u2019s closing address, after the screening of her latest film, \u201cBuried Secrets,\u201d from 2009.<\/p>\n
The filmmaker seized the occasion and paid a visit to the headquarters of the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce<\/b>, 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 Guimar\u00e3es, one of the festival\u2019s curators, and the director of National and International Relations at the institute, Jos\u00e9 Farhat.<\/p>\n
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 \u201cBuried Secrets\u201d took three years to make and is a relatively low-budget flick, at less than 1 million euros.<\/p>\n
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. \u201cSecrets,\u201d for instance, is a French-Tunisian production, even though it is set in the African country and spoken in Arabic.<\/p>\n
She says Tunisian cinema cannot be called an \u201cindustry\u201d per se, because three to four productions are made each year, which may be called \u201cauteur films,\u201d but have good international visibility, because they are featured in several festivals and manage to be shown in commercial theatre circuits, mainly in Europe.<\/p>\n
Tunisia<\/b><\/p>\n
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\u2019s cultural policy will be from now on. \u201cRight now, we are waiting for the elections, we are standing still until we know what will happen,\u201d she said of the expectation that hovers above the Tunisian people. \u201cNow, [the film industry] is also standing still until we learn what the government\u2019s policy for culture will be,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
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 \u201cmuch enthusiasm\u201d among the population.<\/p>\n
Movement <\/b><\/p>\n
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 \u201cpersonal\u201d views of its makers, and is less commercial.<\/p>\n
In the past, the region\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
According to Nagila Guimar\u00e3es, one of the exhibition\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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 \u201cquality leap.\u201d Farhat added that there has been \u201chuge acceptance\u201d on the part of the audience. \u201cWe have had packed theatres,\u201d he declared.<\/p>\n
The screening of Raja\u2019s film will start at 08:00 pm at Cinemateca Brasileira <\/i>(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.<\/p>\n
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tunisian filmmaker Raja Amari, currently in S\u00e3o Paulo to attend a festival, claims that the region\u2019s production is more authorial now. She reveals that her next film will be about illegal immigration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1454,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-38546","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-culture"},"wps_subtitle":"Tunisian filmmaker Raja Amari, currently in S\u00e3o Paulo to attend a festival, claims that the region\u2019s production is more authorial now. She reveals that her next film will be about illegal immigration.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1454"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38546\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}