Members of the international jury of the thirty-sixth edition of the International Film Film Film Amateur of Kélibia, Marie-Clementine Dusabejambo, Estephania Bonnet Alonso, Mats Grorud and Amine Messadi are at the crossroads of the cinemas of the world.
It is not an easy task that that which consists in viewing, digesting and assessing around fifty films in a week. Completely mobilized, including late at night, after the screening cycles, the four members of the International Jury of FIFAK 2023, are remarkably responsible for their mission.
If we know and appreciate the course of Amine Messadi who brings a Tunisian touch to the work of this jury, the other three members are less known to the Tunisian public and come from distant horizons.
To meet them, to observe their interactions with the films, the public or the city of Kélibia, was for me, a daily pleasure. These brief meetings with this trio which brought its diversity and its expertise to the festival, was not the least of satisfaction.
Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo, a Tunisian from heart
It was then that she participated in a festival in Italy that Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo for the first time heard of Carthage’s cinematographic days.
It was in 2011 and this young Rwandan took his first steps in the dissemination of film festivals. Her first experience dates back to that year when she went to present the premiere of her creations in New York.
A few months later, Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo was in Tunisia to participate in the 2012 JCC with “Lyiza” her first short film which will be distinguished by a bronze tanit.
Since then, this filmmaker who lives in Kigali, has often returned to Tunisia. In 2014, she was for the first time in Fifak and presented a short film there. Likewise, she will go to the Hergla Festival and then again at the Producers Network of the JCC where she obtained in 2016, a second bronze tanker for the short film “A place for me”.
Having become a regular in Carthage’s film days, Marie-Clementine Dusabejambo will participate in the 2018 edition and will return to Tunis to develop a feature film project as part of a writing workshop.
This young filmmaker considers that Tunisia taught her a lot and brought her a lot. Contact with Tunisian producers like Dorra Bouchoucha and Lina Ben Chaabane thus enabled her to expand her horizons and deploy her project.
Better still, it was in Tunis, during the Carthage cinematographic days that she admits to having discovered African cinema, notably the works of Senegal and Burkina Faso, which are unknown to the public of East Africa.
It is with joy that Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo found Kélibia. According to her, the spirit of Fifak is unique in that it offers a platform for young people while having a festive and community dimension. The Rwandan filmmaker sums up her thought by emphasizing the good that it does, to be with young talents and an audience who believe in something that begins.
In about fifteen years, the Rwandan juror of FIFAK made four short fictions and some documentaries. She is preparing, next year, to shoot her first feature film, a life project as she qualifies.
For the time being, Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo is fully invested in the work of the FIFAK International Jury and, with chosen words and a serene look, describes the creative abundance that she discovers.
Amine Messadi: an inspiration for future photo directors
The only Tunisian member in the jury of the international competition of the thirty-sixth edition of the Kélibia Amateur International Film Festival, Amine Messadi is one of the most prominent photo directors on the Tunisian film scene.
His many international collaborations make him, one of the most famous and appreciated Tunisian photo directors. Assistant operator at his beginnings in the cinema, Amine Messadi comes from the world of the photo where he made his start.
For him, the professional click took place in 2003 when he followed a university course in the arduous field of the Directorate of Photography. With Franco Di Giacomo, Giuseppe Pinori and Tarek Ben Abdallah, he perfectly learned in Rome before returning to Tunisia and collaborating with several films made by Mohamed Ali Nahdi, Nadia Touijer, Alaeddine Slim or Youssef Chebbi.
Recipient of numerous prizes for his work, Amine Messadi is also the founder of the Tunisian association of the directors of the film photo created in 2020.
Continuing to work with foreign directors on international productions, Amine Messadi brought her singular experience to the Jury of the International Fifak 2023 competition, before resuming her cinematographic pilgrim stick.
In the wake of Youssef Ben Youssef, simultaneously at Hazem Berrabah, Sofiene Fani or Mohamed Maghraoui, Amine Messadi gives us the eloquent example of a photo director who succeeds internationally, a success that will not fail to challenge young participants in Fifak.
Mats Grorud, between Palestine, Nigeria and Tunisia
The first stay of Mats Grorud in Tunisia dates back to 2001. At the time, with friends, he had started a journey by car to lead a group of friends from Beirut in Tangier.
Only, the trip was going to stop at the Libyan borders and the group disperse. Mats Grorud will take a plane for Tunis and will then have his first meeting with our country.
Twenty years later, this Danish director was going to be invited to the Kélibia amateur film Film Festival to present his film “Warda”. If the film was scheduled at the opening of FIFAK in 2022, its director will not be able to make the trip. And it was only a year later that he settled down in Kélibia as a member of the international jury.
Made in 2018, “Warda” is a cult film. For this work, Mats Grorud lived for a year, in a Palestinian refugee camp. During a workshop in Kélibia, the Danish filmmaker who today resides south of Oslo, analyzed the springs of this work with the young Tunisian directors.
His new filmmaker’s experience now leads him to the Niger Delta, between extreme violence and pollution. It was there that he carries out a immersion film project. After three months spent in Nigeria, Mats Grorud is currently working on a Nigerian screenwriter for this project which should soon be created.
Specialist in animation cinema, Mats Grorud perfectly his technique in China where he lived a year in 2006. After making three animated films, in 2010, this director turned to political and social issues.
He explains that the production of the film “Warda” is a path that has lasted eight years and that since then, he has been immersed in his new project on modern piracy.
Backed in Mikro Film, an independent Norwegian production company, Mats Grorud is continuing a course that led him to Kélibia this year. His role as a juror, he plays it fully while multiplying professional meetings and savoring cinematographic discoveries.
Estephania Bonnet Alonso, a producer of the southern hemisphere
This is the first time that producer Estephania Bonnet Alonso has visited Tunisia. Arrived directly from Mexico City where she animated a workshop, this Colombian who has lived in Spain for twelve years, reached Kélibia after a trying journey.
Accustomed to these intercontinental flights where the recovery of his own energy is an art that we end up mastering, Estephania Bonnet Alonso quickly took its marks within the International Festival jury.
Attentive during the projections, taking notes, interaction with the other members of the jury, she follows with delight each evening of the festival and admits to being impressed by the vitality of the public and the cosmopolitanism of the festival.
This international producer should have discovered FIFAK a year ago but a workshop prevented him from engaging with the Tunisian Federation of amateur filmmakers. It was only awarded, because a year later, here it came to discover a festival whose international influence is undeniable.
Estephania Bonnet Alonso is one of the many cultural operators who know that FIFAK is as much a pool as an observatory and an event that counts in the international landscape.
Speaking of her project which started in 2014 with the active support of Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami for the first three years, the producer underlined the itinerant nature of the workshops she is organizing.
Each time, the workshop takes place in a different country, which led Playlab Films from Cuba to Peru, from Barcelona to Mexico City. This nomadic method pushes filmmakers who participate in workshops to get out of their comfort zone and also adjust their creativity to cultural variations.
Playlab Films develops according to two axes: a creative laboratory and a production laboratory. In this way, decisive support is given to artists who can work on their works and then be relayed for production and especially dissemination.
The proclaimed objective of Estephania Bonnet Alonso is to support emerging filmmakers and then propel their careers by inserting them into diffusion networks on an international scale.
The creative workshops of Playlab Films last a dozen days and take place in a closed circle with the aim of winning everyday life to devote itself to cinema according to a practical approach. These twelve days are comparable to a blocked internship during which each filmmaker will have to create an experimental work.
Each time, fifty filmmakers are gathered after being chosen by a selection committee which receives an average of four hundred applications. Later, out of the fifty films made, a dozen will be the subject of international broadcasting.
This year, filmmakers from twenty-seven countries participated in the Mexico City Workshop and their works are called soon to circulate. Perhaps in the future, Tunisian directors will be able to find their momentum from this platform dedicated to young emerging talents.
Today, Estephania Bonnet Alonso produces and distributes directors of many countries like Denmark, Costa Rica, USA, Switzerland or Argentina.
The presence in Tunisia of this producer who knows the South American region can perfectly know can open up Hispanic perspectives for the broadcast of Tunisian films.
But for the time being, Estephania Bonnet Alonso is immersed in the work of the International Fifak Jury, an arduous task given the number and diversity of films but also an aesthetic and cultural discovery that the guest of the FTCA is enjoying each projection.
