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March 1, 2008 |
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"I went to the Ciné-Club to Hang Around Pretty Rich Girls"
Daikha Dridi interviews Moncef Dhouib, filmmaker living and working in Tunisia.
 How far back does your experience with Tunisian ciné-clubs date to?
It was during the 1970s. My native city Sfax witnessed the birth of the Louis Lumière ciné-club in 1958 maybe. Tahar Chéria, then a teacher at the lycée of Sfax, was training under French experts, who had originally pushed for the creation of the ciné-club. In the Atlas movie theater, every Thursday afternoon, students and professors met to watch and then discuss a non-commercial film, the ambiance was like a social outing.
Following the experience of the Sfax ciné-club, that other ciné-clubs began to sprout in Tunisia, I think, and mostly the Tunisian Federation of cinéclubs.
To distinguish ourselves from the Louis Lumière ciné-club, that we deemed too French and too snob, we created the Sfax Youth Ciné-Club, that programmed films in the Baghdad movie theater every Friday afternoon. To counter this Youth ciné-club, whose prevailing political tendency was on the left and extreme left, le youth of the Destour party established its own ciné-club, which screened films every Saturday afternoon at the Sfax municipal theater. The space was transformed on the occasion to a movie theater to attract the youth and deter them from hanging around the leftists, they were also given popular films that screened sometimes in première.
What was the political and social context of the country at that time?
May ’68 had arrived to Sfax with some delay. Beginning in 1970, youth groups started to grumble, this ended with a wave of arrests in the midst of leftists movements, well rooted in ciné-clubs. Some were shut down, which had a significant impact on the development of the ciné-club movement. After being an activist as a member of the Youth Ciné-Club, I was elected president of the workers's ciné-club club in 1970. I was then re-elected for three years. In 1973, the Sfax ciné-club was shut down and so was the worker’s ciné-club. I forgot to mention that in the frenzy of establishment of ciné-clubs or spaces for meetings, encounters and debates, I established a “Worker’s Ciné-Club” that screened films on Saturday afternoons. The ciné-club had some disagreements with the central union office, they wanted to control it, but eventually deserted it and closed it. In 1983, I took the plane for Paris in 1973.
Why were you interested in cinema?
At the al-Maali primary school, in the outskirts of Sfax on the road to Sidi Mansour, a hamlet of fishermen, I discovered theater. In addition to his salutary mission and relentless struggle against lice, the school nurse was entrusted with directing the school’s end of year play. He had picked me for the role of a poor dark bully, an apprentice dentist who pulled people’s teeth when the doctor was not around. The play was comical, but the imperfection of our delivery rendered it even more comical. I was captivated by theater, especially acting. It seemed accessible. Cinema precluded an industry, money, all of which seemed unattainable, my dreams of were, by contrast, plausible. When I went to high-school I discovered, at the same time as everyone else in the city, the House of Culture and the amateur filmmakers club. It was animated by a teacher, who also worked as the television’s correspondent. He initiated us to film technique and talked about cinema. It was free of charge and I was poor, a felicitous coincidence. I enrolled quickly, and touched a camera for the first time quickly as well. The dream of cinema seemed suddenly accessible. I attended that ciné-club to hang out with pretty rich girls principally, and tangentially, on occasion, watch films.
Ultimately, cinema brought me far more than “pretty and rich” girls, the debates opened my horizons, I learned to read films and decipher the language of cinema. To impress the pretty rich girls, I became unbeatable in the field. I learned the history of cinema quickly, the New Wave, familiarized myself with the names of famous directors. I knew Russian cinema by heart, same for Polish, Czeck (it was towards the end of the socialist period). Our culture was impregnated with socialism, and I believe its influence is still palpable until today.
The ciné-club was not firstly a means to engage in a political activity prohibited by the regime?
No, I did not go to the ciné-club through the bias of politics. I came across politics there. The ciné-clubs were dominated by leftist trends, just looking at the selection of films is telling: Battleship Potemkine (by Sergeï Eisenstien 1925), Ten Days that Shook the World ("October" by Sergeï Eisenstein, 1927), The Blood of the Condor ("Sangre de Condor" by Jorges Sanjines, 1969), Cairo Station ("Bab el-Hadid" by Youssef Chahine, 1958) and others. The discussions were in French in the beginning, a handful French professors spoke calmly and explained the films. A training of great benefit to all of us, for the most part. We were handed a presentation sheet on each film, always well documented, with information on country of production, filmmaker and conditions surrounding production. In 1972, the extreme left introduced colloquial Tunisian to ciné-clubs. Neither Arabic nor French could be spoken, we had to speak in Tunisian, the language used for their newspaper Perspectives, published in France. Every discussion turned into a discussion of the language of discussion. Eventually we agreed to allow to each the freedom to choose the language they preferred. From the start, the leftists would spoke in colloquial Tunisian, one after the other in relays, until the French deserted the ciné-clubs after a few sessions. The girls from good families who amonsgt other motives, came to perfect their command of French, eventually deserted the ciné-club as well. In brief, the ciné-club registered a loss.
In Morocco and Algeria, in the 1970s and 1980s, ciné-clubs were channels for student movements, the left and extreme left to practice a political activism otherwise repressed in society. Was this the case for Tunisia as well?
Yes, absolutely, the left wanted to infiltrate the milieus of the youth could not find a more felicitous venue than the ciné-clubs. The debates that followed screenings were an ideal opportunity to initiate them to Marxist thought. These movements did not have the backing of legitimate political parties, they did not have offices, the ciné-clubs were a breeding ground for their activities.
How were films selected?
The federation of ciné-clubs proposed a list of films every year, each club was in charge of programming. Later on, the list was imposed. The films were in general of good quality, they had nothing to do with commercial cinema.
Did you screen Arab films?
Yes, Egyptian films. We had complete film cycles for Tawfic Saleh, Salah Abou Seif, Youssef Chahine and Shadi Abdessalam, Henri Barakat and almost all the films produced during the era of “public” funding.
When did the experience end?
I left for France after a wave of arrests struck, ciné-clubs were shut down, particularly the worker’s ciné-club.
What of ciné-clubs in Tunisia today?
I don’t know anymore.
How do you look back at the experience?
I don’t look back on things that are meaningless.
Your gaze and approach as a filmmaker have changed a great deal since the moment when you were making your first films and today? How so, and why?
We are a generation of filmmakers that was driven to provoke and denounce, we often produced films that falsified reality while brandishing the standard of “speaking truth”. Moreover, on the three taboos of our societies, sex, religion and politics, in reality we have only pushed the envelope on sex, the easiest to address, and in the end we have only created a new conformism.
I think the dismal state of the cinema produced in the Arab world is also the responsibility of filmmakers. This ring of self-pitying whimperers, who spend their time complaining about the difficulties they encounter, sure enough real, are just as accountable for deserting the public. In my race for glory, genuine as it was, I ran from one festival to the next, eager to earn a prize because I wanted recognition because it implied visibility. I touched on thorny subjects because I wanted to prove I was not a weasel, but I lost track of the essential, the raison d’être of cinema, namely, the public. |
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