The 25th edition of Carthage Film Festival will take place from 29 November to 6 December 2014

Around the festival : Round table

3rd December 2014 at 3 pm - Africa Hotel


The space devoted to Arab and African cinema in European theatres has become negligible compared to what it used to be. The near absence of Arab and African images, combined with the structural crisis of the exploitation now operating in countries in the region, condemns the majority of production to anonymity, except for a rather confidential presence at major international festivals.

Crucial for the survival of the film industry in the region, the problem of visibility of movies – beyond the economic logic that it covers – is a matter of misunderstanding between creators from the south, and funders and distributors from the north on the type of movies potentially exploitable in the circuit of European cinemas.

At the heart of this misunderstanding, the question of the perception of what today is supposed to be an Arab or African film able to find an audience in a theatre in the North. The appreciation of a film is not free of preconceptions as to the «representative» character of a work of art and the anticipations of the expectations of the Western viewer, and there is a risk of finding the same kind of «exotic» cinema calibrated for European audiences taking centre stage.

In doing so, singular propositions, fragile by virtue of their desire to break with the surrounding formatting, will be de facto doomed for oblivion due to lack of «representativeness».

Through this meeting, Carthage Film Festival aspires to start a dialogue between creators, producers and distributors from the North and the South in order to dispel these misunderstandings and foreshadow more equitable alternatives in the distribution of movies from the South.

Ikbal Zalila






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