The Minister of Cultural Affairs has announced that it was decided in high places to make the biennial Carthage (JCC) cinematographic days and remove the red carpet preceding the opening and fence ceremonies.
So instead of solving the real problems facing the JCC for years, we hide the dust under the carpet, we make up, we take measures…. And we are completely mistaken, even if it means destroying this festival, the oldest in Africa and the Arab world.
It is obvious that it is not the red carpet that is problematic for the JCC, but it is its poor organization !!!
All film festivals have red carpets, and some even organize several per day. For example, the Cannes Film Festival is organizing at least two, if not three per day: at 7:30 p.m., at 10:30 p.m. and sometimes even at 4:00 p.m. The Cairo International Film Festival, which is the only category A festival in the region, organizes one evening. For these festivals, everything is going very well. Why is the JCC red carpet only ridiculous? The answer is obvious: because it is the only red carpet that is bad, or not even at all, organized. He does not obey any rule!
To believe that the organizers of the JCC have never set foot in a film festival and have not seen how these red carpets obey strict rules.
In Cannes for example, there is a strict and compulsory dress code, which applies to all, except for a few rare exceptions for some very great celebrities, as for example in 1953, when Pablo Picasso was delivered a derogation to come in sheep’s pelisse instead of a tuxedo. Agents are there to monitor the application of this code and those who contravene it do not enter. There are also agents to ensure the order of passage. You don’t climb the Cannes steps anyhow and anytime. It is organized to the nearest millimeter and having an invitation gives no rights!
Like Cairo and El Gouna. There is a real organization. For these two festivals, there are two red carpets, one for the celebrities, which will pass in front of the accredited photographers (themselves well dressed) and the other for the guests of the festival, who will enter the room without passing in front of the photographers and without having the possibility of doing the pitches and harvesting a moment of ephemeral glory.
These festivals organize their red carpets. And it is obvious that it is the same everywhere!
As for the JCC, we want this to be a well -organized festival, while its leaders are appointed for a year or two, and that they have just a few months to determine an editorial line of the publishing (when there is one) and organize it, when often they had never organized any event of this scale and have no experience in the matter.
In addition, each time these new leaders bring back their own teams, whose members are also almost all neophytes which must each time start from scratch.
For the other film festivals, there are teams Permanentwhich are there year after year, including when the president of the festival changes. For other festivals, there is such a permanent work, and therefore an evolution. For the other festivals, there is a balance sheet that is done every year, and the next year, we try to correct. But it is the same people who work, who learn, who are advancing….
Imagine that you are given six months to organize a wedding, how are you going to do it? You will do it more or less in precipitation. And if you were given a year, don’t you think you would do better? And if you were asked to organize one every year, you don’t think that every year, you will do better because rich in your past experience? After a few years, you could even make it your job, you would be a specialist !!
The JCCs need this permanent team that would work every year, and all year round, which could move forward, improve, progress….
Do you imagine that the JCCs did not have offices before March 2018 and that before, each year, we put them somewhere, where they were found, like homeless?
Do you imagine that the JCCs did not have real archives, because each team left with its files?
Making the biennial JCC would not solve the problems. You just need a real permanent and professional team, a clear policy, a real organization and a continuity.
Neïla Driss
