IKBAL ZALILA is cinematographic critic and former president and member of the Tunisian association for the promotion of cinematographic criticism (ATPCC). He is also an academic, master assistant at the Higher Institute of Multimedia Arts (ISAMM). Interview.
What general assessment do you make of JCC 2012?
It is a session that could have been saved if we had cared more about the technical projection conditions and the reception of the guests. The poor organization created chaotic conditions and this has prejudiced to the festival. On the cinema side, the films offer was not important but it was correct overall. The competitions were quite balanced, especially in foreign films, feature films and documentaries.
What do you think of the different JCC verdicts?
It is clear that for the competition of feature films, the charts were not political as in certain previous editions. The jury worked independently, it was not subject to pressures. I believe that the decisions of the jury are generally acceptable.
How do you see the evolution of Tunisian cinema with regard to the great upheavals currently experienced by the country?
I am not one of those who think that the revolutionary moment is a moment of rupture from which you have to think about Tunisian cinema.
Regardless of current events, Tunisian cinema is experiencing three major issues. Administrative sclerosis which dates back a few years already. A kind of creative bankruptcy of more or less established filmmakers. And the development of a spontaneous generation of young filmmakers who have worked in the margins and who in recent years continue to bring a wind of freshness and impertinence to Tunisian cinema.
And I start with this last problem. This youth understood that it was necessary to count on itself and to mourn state subsidies. It is self -propelled with the consequence of a significant qualitative increase in production and interesting cinematographic proposals which augur best. Can we build cinematography on this economy? I don’t think so. Because leaving a career to zero budget is very difficult. But the luck of Tunisian cinema was this generational rupture marked with what the elders do.
What are the standard bearers of this generation?
There is a very interesting wave of documentary cinema. His flagship films are Gharsallah by Kamel Laaridhi; Karim Souaki’s silence; Fellaga 2011 by Rafik Omrani; Memory of a woman by Lassâad Oueslati; Babylon of Alaaeddine Slim and Youssef Chebbi, a completely self -produced film, very strongly on the cinematographic level. Previously there was Hya or Houa (he and she), a very small budget film by Elyès Baccar, very interesting. In the short films, there was the experience of the fall of Alaaeddine Slim.
Can this generation arouse the interest of foreign producers and go internationally?
These are young people who have learned to work and create in precariousness. They do not do professional research work. But the multiplication of new funds is a chance for them. With the drying up of European funds, new funds are those from Gulf countries. That said there are some directors who do not want to “compromise” with these funds essentially for ideological reasons. But others take advantage of it. Even if it should not overestimate the contribution of these funds which remain unimportant (between 60 and 70,000 dollars for production aid).
What is the credibility of these funds?
There is no censorship. There is an international reader commission and a selection is made. The interest of funders is to promote the image of certain Gulf countries such as Qatar, Abu Dhabi and Dubai who seek to forge a solid image worldwide.
Let us return to this crisis of creativity in Tunisian cinema. What do you especially impute it that it seems to become chronic?
Compared to other close cinematographic dynamics in terms of means, some Tunisian filmmakers live in autarky and are not open to what is done in the world. We are not going to the film. And we are not attentive to what is happening elsewhere. And then Tunisia is a country where there have never been real substantive debates on cinema. There is no critical support. So no possibilities for constructive exchange between directors and journalists, unfortunately. The field of criticism is nonexistent in Tunisia. There are also a lot of susceptibilities not to say things as they are and that breaks the bond of trust between directors and criticism. The minimum conditions for the production of a cinematographic reflection are not met. And even the Cinéclubs took a resolutely ideological orientation with an overolitization of image education which was counterproductive. And then the environment being too small one tend to spare others.
Has the development of Tunisian cinema suffered from the “cultural administration”?
Historically speaking, Tunisian cinema is undoubtedly the most spoiled in the world in terms of public funding. 500,000 dinars for a feature film is respectable. Except that in recent years, the demand for funding has become much more important than before. This is not a problem of means but of allocation of resources. And then the composition of the subsidy commission is variable. In some sessions it goes well despite the dissatisfied who believe that they are legitimately entitled to a subsidy. And then there are those who systematically and those who never have it. It doesn’t work like that. For me alone the directors who bring something to the Tunisian cinema must continue to be funded by the State. However, we still subsidize mediocre filmmakers with each project request. There is undoubtedly a lack of audacity.
There are also organizational problems with commissions that must manage many files (100 to 150 files in a few months) with very poorly paid members. There are also the inevitable corporatist logics and power.
Should the state have a real cinema policy that goes beyond funding to, for example, fight against the extinction of rooms in the country?
It is clear that for an investor today a cinema room is not a guarantee of profitability. The operating problem is completely posed. This is a problem that you have to think seriously. But I am in favor of the idea that the disappearance of theaters does not mean that the films are not seen. But they are seen differently. And I am against saying that watching a film on your PC is considered a non -relationship with cinema. We must therefore take into account new film consumption habits. The state could not intervene the bias of the cultivation houses which are equipped and do a program. But state voluntarism is not enough to resolve the problem of exploitation. Because we lost the culture of the room. And the target to educate is childhood. Because there are a whole generation of spectators – young people – definitively “lost” for theaters. We see it in the JCCs where there are attitudes that have nothing to do with civilized behavior in a cinema. These are people who have learned to see films in special conditions (noise….). You may have to study new ways to offer cinema such as demand films for example. You pay 500 millimes and you watch the film with you.
Does the revolution represent a hope for Tunisian cinema?
Since the Revolution, there has been a multiplication of association for cinema. At the same time, a struggle for the creation or recovery of these associations takes place. But these associations remained empty shells for the most part which are a place of intestine struggles for power. The revolution could bring something to the Tunisian cinema if it was deprived of freedom of the time of the dictatorship. But at the risk of shocking, I think that the Ministry of Culture has always praised the cinema. And if there have been some censorship problems, they have often been circumscribed. One cannot say that there was suffocation of the creativity of the filmmaker of the Tunisian. And if Tunisian cinema was timid it is largely the responsibility of filmmakers who are often concerned with self -censorship to access the funds of the ministry that because of factual censorship.
The Tunisian revolution will not revolutionize Tunisian cinema …
There was the creation of the National Center for Cinema and Image. The idea is that the Ministry of Culture outsources all activities related to cinema as is already done in France. Maybe it will make things happen. Even if its new director is currently highly contested by the profession (note: Adnane Kheder, former president and chief executive officer of national television).
At the risk of being pessimistic. I think that a significant change in the field of cinema can only be made condition of a cultural change among actors of Tunisian cinema. Unfortunately the world of cinema is a microcosm, which evolves in a vacuum with the only concern the “sharing of the cake”.
I think we will not spend years of anarchy, which can be creative elsewhere. Before the sector is organized and developed favorably.
Interview led by Sami Ben Mansour
Photo credit: Goethe Institute
