Until August 26, the city of Kélibia hosts the thirty-sixth edition of the International Film Film Festival. In a creative fair atmosphere that hardly sleeps and dreams of cinema.
It is an avalanche of films all as tempting as each other, which occupy the days and nights of the festival -goers of Kélibia la Blanche, whose beaches extend as far as the eye can see and azure.
This Kélibia Amateur Film Festival was able to remain young, resolutely young, and can boast of having this youth in its DNA. Indeed, from its creation in 1964, this festival had bet on young people, those who tinkered with films with the means at hand and the desire to tu stars.
It was within the clubs of the Tunisian Federation of Amateur filmmakers that the Ridha Behi, Selma Baccar, Khaled Barsaoui and closer to us, Kaouther Ben Henia took their first steps. From the top of its twenty years, each rising generation borrowed this obligatory passage – rather this desired passage – to foul its first weapons and to attack the screens of the world.
Whether in the legendary clubs of Tunis, Kairouan, Sfax and Tunis, or in other clubs born in the four corners of filmphilia, young technicians and directors have always perfect their learning before standing out for their own.
This continuous tradition, with a permanent succession and faces that change and always the committed loyalty of the oldest. Despite the multiplication of film schools, FTCA and FIFAK remain sought -after and often decisive vectors in the spark which will propel a career.
This new edition which started on August 19, is no exception to the rule and takes place in a good -natured atmosphere and a state of creativity of every moment.
Thus, the marathon continues in Kélibia with a good international competition and a presence of the Tunisian amateur film in several of its components.
Indeed, now, national participation is available in films produced by the various clubs of the Tunisian federation of amateur filmmakers, independent films and school films. Generally designated by the name “end of studies project”, these films are produced within the various university institutions teaching cinema.
To this diversity is added the cosmopolitanism of the international competition which brews the works of many countries, with an interesting Asian touch.
Because for this thirty-sixth edition of FIFAK, two regions are particularly in the spotlight: Asia with films from India, Japan, Iran or Kazakhstan and Latin America with in particular works of Colombia, Brazil or Argentina.
This configuration to which is added the participation of European and African countries, gives this Kélibia festival, the most open international competition of all our film festivals.
In itself, this cosmopolitan identity of the festival is a historical gain not to be squandered, a gain with which the massive support of the inhabitants of Kélibia should be associated.
After three days of festival, the Zine Essafi theater has been filled each time, with an average of 1,500 spectators per evening. Very variegated, the public brings together families as well as members of the Tunisian federation clubs for amateur filmmakers or just as numerous students.
The filmphilia is essential and, with each projection, the connoisseur and disciplined audience, listens to the presentation of the film, follows carefully and then applaud politely. Well established, this night ritual will be relayed the next day by technical debates that dissect each work with the complicity of the animators of the Tunisian Federation of the Ciné-Clubs and the Tunisian Association for the promotion of cinematographic criticism.
This aspect is important in that it underlines the associative synergies in the field of cinema and also the joint effort to maintain a nursery open to access to young talents.
As such, thematic workshops are offered each year, are structured in one -week modules and led by leading specialists like Tahar Ben Ghedifa, Sarra Labidi or Kamel Ben Ouanes. These workshops and debates are in fact, the second side of the festival and one of its most remarkable constants.
In addition to international and national competitions, FIFAK offers two other less visible but just as important competitions. Having a specific jury, animated this year by Chiraz Ben Mrad and Belhassen Handous, the photo competition and that of the best scenario, devote the educational concern of the festival and its vocation to support each aspect of the learning of amateur filmmakers.
Because and it is essential, Kélibia is a festival-school, a forum where students, self-taught and enthusiasts find themselves for a week with the desire to progress, learn, confront experiences and integrate into networks or even aesthetic currents.
It is also a cardinal place to rub the public and also for criticism, an observatory of trends that work on the creative field in the field of cinema.
For a week, a remarkable bubbling accompanies the festival which offers the public, a dozen cinematographic projections each evening. Still beyond midnight, artistic discoveries continue when it is surprising to note that the first debates emerge in the night and that each jury does the same, gathering immediately after the projections.
A special mention is to be made with regard to the international jury which includes filmmakers and producers from very diverse horizons and countries like Colombia, Norway or Rwanda.
This diversity of looks combined with a Tunisian touch, is one of the guarantees of success in the international international competition. Same remark for the national jury which weaves synergies between directors, producers, actors, moviegoers and criticisms to reach a fair record.
While waiting for the upcoming verdicts, time is for the moment to discover the hundred films on the program that some festival -goers have a point of honor to see everyone. Should we add that the choice is particularly judicious between fiction films, documentaries, experimental films and animation works?
Certainly, this edition of the fifty-ninth year of FIFAK is rich in all the promises of which a cultural manifestation is capable of which has always maintained its line by renewing itself in a continuity steeped in resistance and creativity.
The films of the second day of the competition had at first glance the asset of the variety of their origins. With European works (France, Spain and United Kingdom), Arabs (Tunisia and Syria), Latin American (Argentina and Brazil) and an Iranian film, the program was rather raised.
However, notwithstanding their own qualities, the films screened were of lower intensity than those of the day before. Several style exercises, a documentary on French fishermen, an animated fantasy on the addiction to television and the tragic closed-closed dock of a couple, paraded on the big screen of the festival.
Similarly, a documentary devoted to the sacred waterfalls of the Guarani Indians of Brazil and the resistance to clearing of the Amazonian forests, offered a look that is both ethnic and militant.
Then, a series of Tunisian films, mainly school films, followed one another until a late hour. As always, the public was fully committed and will remain until the end of this second evening.
The festival continues with five other evenings that will egregate until Sunday. With their share of nuggets and discoveries. With the added bonus, the fervor of an audience that does not miss a crumb of this feast of all the cinematographic possibilities.
