From October 3 to 5, 2025, the Maison de la Culture Ibn Rachiq will host the 13th edition of Tunis shortunique national festival exclusively devoted to professional short film. A anniversary edition that 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 assertive desire to re -register the short format at the heart of the Tunisian cinematographic landscape, while celebrating an already rich and significant course.
Born of a strong conviction-that which the short film is a field of experimentation and artistic renewal-Tunis quite short has imposed itself over the years as a space of recognition, dissemination and reflection. Since his first edition in 2005, he offered young filmmakers a privileged showcase and allowed criticism to feed a fertile dialogue with the creators. Today, while ATPCC is preparing to celebrate its forty years, this anniversary edition of the festival promises to be a double moment: return to a heritage and openness to new perspectives.
This 13th edition will revolve around a dense program: projections of the best recent Tunisian short films, seminar and training workshop around the theme of adaptation, competition of critical articles, debates and friendly meetings. Faithful to his vocation, Tunis quite short is not content to present films: he also stimulates reflection, questions aesthetic and industrial issues, and opens up tracks for the future.
The heart of the festival will beat to the rhythm of the official films competition, which brings together this year sixteen short films selected from the most striking works of the 2023 and 2024 seasons. Fiction, documentary and animation rub shoulders, testifying to the vitality and diversity of emerging cinematographic scriptures. These films will compete for four prizes awarded by a jury made up of criticism and academics: best achievement, best scenario, best technical contribution and best acting game.
The sixteen films in competition are:
– Leni Africo of Marouene Labib,
– 373, Pastor Street by Mohamed Ismail Louati,
– Where is Diana by Samy Chaffai,
– Makun of Fares Nanaa,
– Isha’s path of Selma Hobbi,
– Loading of anis lassoued,
– In Three Layers of Darkness from Houcem Slouli,
– No number of Hiba Dhaouadi,
– Kamikaze from Hassen Marzougui,
– The path of forgetting by Ali Marwen Chekki,
– To be by Ghassen Gacem,
– The Carob Tree from Imed Methneni,
– Between Two Worlds of Hedia ben Aicha,
– Flesh and Blood of Inès Arsi,
– The world is small Bilel Bali
– Fragments of Life of anise ben dali.
Besides the film competition, Tunis Tout short also puts cinematographic criticism in the spotlight. A competition of articles 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 passer, convinced that criticism remains an essential link in cultural life, allowing to feed the debate and give the works an additional depth.
The ten items in the running for the price 2023-2024 are:
– RSIFF 2024 – “Red children”, a cry against oblivion from Neila Driss (webdo.tn),,
– Red children: question the silence of the victims From Houssem Laachi (Yawmiyat al-Ayyam, Carthage Days 2024),
– Mé El Aïn by Mariem Joobeur: maternity and identity in the face of extremism from Lassaad Mahmoudi (TAP),
– Agora of Ala Eddine Slim: where the crow and the dog tell the ills of man and fatherland by Yosra Chikhawi (Online realities),
– The Pietà and its Revenants from Meysem Marrouki (La Presse),
– “Where we come from”, the sublime beauty of horror from Rihab Boukhayatia (Nawaat),
– Prohibited thresholds: between fantasy and social fracture by Fadoua Medallel,
– The union with an ooign 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 Khelil explores photography (rulers 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 first gesture “, This meeting will analyze how the first Tunisian courts, from the years 1960-1970, found in the new literary stories a founding material. Adaptation will thus be explored as a cultural, aesthetic and identity gesture, by questioning its current relevance at the time of intermedia hybridizations and global mutations of the image.
In the extension of the seminar, a training workshop will bring together a dozen 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 will of the festival, which wishes to transmit analysis tools and train new critical voices capable of supporting Tunisian cinema with requirement and independence.
The 2025 edition of Tunis short is not limited to projections and debates. It is also accompanied by a bookish production carried by the ATPCC, faithful to its editorial tradition. Recent publications devoted to Khemaies Khayati, Jilani Saadi or to the Tunisian amateur cinema testify to this: Tunisian criticism writes its history and enriches cinematographic heritage through memory and analysis.
By investing the Maison de la Culture Ibn Rachiq, an emblematic place of Tunisian cultural life, the festival revives an urban and popular anchor, accessible to the general public and professionals. Cinema students, researchers, criticisms, directors, producers and simple images enthusiasts will find a meeting and dialogue space there.
Through Tunis, the ATPCC continues a clear mission: to enhance the short film as a laboratory of forms and ideas, to support young talents, to represent the country’s cultural diversity, to encourage public policies in favor of the court, and to offer an international showcase to these too often invisible films. 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 film ecosystem. By bringing together films, criticisms, publications, seminars and workshops, Tunis just 2025 presents itself as a unique crossroads, where the celebration of the past is coupled with a reflection on the future. An edition that promises to honor twenty years of existence while opening new paths for future generations.
Neïla Driss
