The Palme d’Or of the 2013 Cannes Film Festival was awarded last night to the film La Vie d’Adèle, by Franco-Tunisian Abdellatif Kechich.
During his thank you speech, the latter did not omit to pay tribute to the Tunisian youth who made the revolution, wishing him to be able to live freely, speak freely and love freely. Only here, as soon as the list announced, a big question was asked on the Tunisian canvas: will this film be screened one day in Tunisia?
This is the very subject of the film that is controversial, namely, a love story between two lesbians. The majority of Tunisian Internet users, perhaps, think that in view of the general atmosphere in Tunisia and the rise of fundamentalism, the Kechiche film will never be screened on our screens.
Homosexuality being a taboo subject in our society, this film risks hitting the sensitivity of Tunisian spectators and in particular that of the most conservative and of displeasing the Islamists in power.
The reaction of the Ministry of Culture was quick. According to the Kalima Radio site, Mr Fathi Kharrat, director general of cinema, while welcoming the success of the film, said that he was addressed to “a particular environment” and that violent reactions to the screening of the film in our rooms could take place.
After the scandals that accompanied the screening of the film by Nadia Fani, “Neither Allah ni Master”, and of Persepolis, should we now expect a “veto” of the ministry of tutelage at each release of a “particular film”? Would things have been different if the film director was not Tunisian? Will we witness the return of a new era of censorship?
Tunisians in general and the Tunisian youth in particular, that mentioned by Kechiche, last night, on the podium of the Cannes Film Festival, have they not yet acquired the right to be able to assess a film by themselves? Who holds the right to judge a cinematographic work and determine if it is good for our society or is not? Where is the limit of the freedom to think dearly paid by Tunisians in this case? Art in general, is it subject to moral assessments?
We are not there yet, the film will not officially be released in France until next October, so wait to see, and who knows, by then, the winds may have turned.
