From October 3 to 5, 2025, the Maison de la Culture Ibn Rachiq will host the 13th edition of Tunis Tout Courtthe only national festival exclusively dedicated to professional short films. An anniversary edition which will mark the twenty years of this event initiated in 2005 by theTunisian Association for the Promotion of Cinematographic Criticism (ATPCC). After a few years of interruption due to the pandemic, the festival returns with the stated desire to reinstate the short format at the heart of the Tunisian cinematic landscape, while celebrating an already rich and significant journey.
Born from a strong conviction – that short films are a field of experimentation and artistic renewal – Tunis Tout Court has established itself over the years as a space for recognition, dissemination and reflection. Since its first edition in 2005, it has offered young filmmakers a privileged showcase and allowed critics to foster a fruitful dialogue with creators. Today, as the ATPCC prepares to celebrate its forty years, this anniversary edition of the festival promises to be a double moment: a return to a heritage and an opening towards new perspectives.
This 13th edition will be structured around a dense program: screenings of the best recent Tunisian short films, seminar and training workshop around the theme of adaptation, competition of critical articles, debates and friendly meetings. True to its vocation, Tunis Tout Court does not just present films: it also stimulates reflection, questions aesthetic and industrial issues, and opens avenues for the future.
The heart of the festival will beat to the rhythm of the official film competition, which this year brings together sixteen short films selected among the most striking works of the 2023 and 2024 seasons. Fiction, documentary and animation come together, testifying to the vitality and diversity of emerging cinematographic writing. These films will compete for four prizes awarded by a jury made up of critics and academics: best direction, best screenplay, best technical contribution and best acting.
The sixteen films in competition are:
– Leni Africo by Marouene Labib,
– 373, Pasteur Street by Mohamed Ismail Louati,
– Where is Diana by Samy Chaffai,
– Makun from Fares Naanaa,
– The path of Isha by Selma Hobbi,
– Loading by Anis Lassoued,
– In Three Layers of Darkness by Houcem Slouli,
– No Number by Hiba Dhaouadi,
– Kamikaze by Hassen Marzougui,
– The path to oblivion by Ali Marwen Chekki,
– To Be by Ghassen Gacem,
– The Carob Tree by Imed Methneni,
– Between Two Worlds by Hedia Ben Aicha,
– Flesh and Blood by Inès Arsi,
– The world is small by Bilel Bali
– Fragments of Life by Anis Ben Dali.
Alongside the film competition, Tunis Tout Court also puts film criticism in the spotlight. An article competition will reward two prizes: that of the best critical article of the year 2023-2024 and that of the best article written during the festival. With this initiative, the ATPCC affirms its role as a conduit, convinced that criticism remains an essential link in cultural life, making it possible to nourish debate and give works additional depth.
The ten articles in the running for the 2023-2024 prize are:
– RSIFF 2024 – “Les Enfants Rouges”, a cry against oblivion by Neila Driss (Webdo.tn),
– The Red Children: questioning the silence of the victims by Houssem Laachi (Yawmiyat al-Ayyam, Carthage Days 2024),
– Mé El Aïn by Mariem Joobeur: motherhood and identity in the face of extremism by Lassaad Mahmoudi (TAP),
– Agora by Ala Eddine Slim: where the crow and the dog tell of the ills of man and the homeland by Yosra Chikhawi (Réalités Online),
– The Pietà and its ghosts by Meysem Marrouki (La Presse),
– “Where we come from”, the sublime beauty of horror by Rihab Boukhayatia (Nawaat),
– Forbidden thresholds: between fantasy and social divide by Fadoua Medallel,
– The union of an onion eye and a screen beyond black and white by Mohamed Ismail Louati (A Ticket to),
– State intervention in the financing of film production by Fathi Kharrat (Al Hayat Athakafiya)
– When Hedi Khélil explores photography (Governors and governed) by Abeljelil Bouguerra (Al Hayat Athakafiya).
Theoretical and historical reflection will find its place in a seminar devoted to literary adaptation. Titled “ At the origins of the Tunisian short film: literary adaptation as a primary gesture », this meeting will analyze how the first Tunisian shorts, from the 1960s-1970s, found founding material in short stories and literary stories. Adaptation will thus be explored as a cultural, aesthetic and identity gesture, by questioning its current relevance at a time of intermedia hybridizations and global image mutations.
As an extension of the seminar, a training workshop will bring together around ten participants to reflect on the role of criticism in the analysis of adaptation and to write on a corpus of short films. This initiative confirms the educational desire of the festival, which wishes to transmit analysis tools and train new critical voices capable of supporting Tunisian cinema with rigor and independence.
The 2025 edition of Tunis Tout Court is not limited to screenings and debates. It is also accompanied by book production supported by the ATPCC, faithful to its editorial tradition. Recent publications devoted to Khemaies Khayati, Jilani Saadi and even Tunisian amateur cinema bear witness to this: Tunisian criticism writes its history and enriches the cinematographic heritage through memory and analysis.
By investing in the Maison de la Culture Ibn Rachiq, an emblematic place of Tunisian cultural life, the festival reconnects with an urban and popular anchor, accessible to the general public as well as professionals. Film students, researchers, critics, directors, producers and simple image enthusiasts will find a space for meeting and dialogue.
Through Tunis Tout Court, the ATPCC pursues a clear mission: to promote short films as a laboratory of forms and ideas, support young talents, represent the cultural diversity of the country, encourage public policies in favor of short films, and offer an international showcase to these films that are too often invisible. Twenty years after its creation, this festival confirms that the short film is not a secondary stage, but an artistic language in its own right, essential to the cinematographic ecosystem. By bringing together films, reviews, publications, seminars and workshops, Tunis Tout Court 2025 presents itself as a unique crossroads, where the celebration of the past is coupled with reflection on the future. An edition that promises to honor twenty years of existence while opening new paths for generations to come.
Neila Driss
