The Carthage Film Festival (JCC), oldest and most prestigious of African and Arab festivals, is doing well. Biennial until 2014, it has become a yearly event, thanks to the proliferation of the African and Arab film industries. 2016 offered an opportunity to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the JCC. 2017 was the year of assessments and reforms. 2018 will be the year when last year’s choices are confirmed and we seize the opportunity to widen the Festival’s perspectives both in our region and around the world. The festive, popular aspect of the JCC is important and the Festival is undoubtedly the biggest event in the country, transforming the city of Tunis by attracting an incredible, good-natured public (over 200,000 spectators in movie theatres and over 2 million people in the centre of Tunis over 8 days). But it was necessary to refocus the Festival and get back to basics:

• - Confirming the Festival’s African and Arab vocation and a better balance between African and Arab countries in terms of both films and guests
• - Confirming the desire to be a Festival of the South, a tri-continental forum with Africa, Asia and Latin America and with a Mediterranean zest. This year, our guests of honour are Iraq and India for the Arab-Asian world; Senegal, for Africa; and Brazil, for Latin America.
• - Deepening the Festival’s creative, film-loving and activist options, this trend being at the heart of the fight to emancipate Africa and the Arab world
• - Enhancing Carthage Pro, the JCC’s professional platform, an essential space, incubator of ideas and projects, a place of networking for professionals in the South and their counterparts in the North
• - Continuing the policy of decentralizing the JCC, by creating 4 festivals in other towns in Tunisia with the goal of quickly making them independent of the JCC
• - JCC in the prisons was a success and will continue in 6 prison units around the country.

2018 was the year when a huge cultural project, the Cité de la Culture, was launched in the heart of Tunis. This achievement, probably the most important cultural achievement in Africa and the Arab world, gives pride of place to cinema, with 6 concert halls and cinemas and the launching of the Tunisian Cinémathèque, now a reality. The JCC have invested this space in two ways, since our headquarters are now housed there permanently and a great part of our programme will take place there, with outstanding hosting and technical conditions.

And so, long live the JCC!
Long live cinema!

And save your dates because we are expecting you from the 3rd to the 10th of November 2018.

Fifty-three years (1966-2018) is the age of maturity for the first Arab-African festival in the world. The 29th Festival maintains its initial calling, enriched by the backing of the Portuguese- and English-speaking African countries as well as the diaspora.
Its films are looking at current issues, sometimes the specific problem of family relations in today’s complex world, sometimes focusing on the turbulent crossings of the No Man’s Land of impassable, deadly borders.
Films which probe human absurdity in its conflicts with its own realities, offering a personal and innovative expression on the screen. The film-makers who are showing at the Festival, whether established or not, scorn the false truths of commercial successes and distance themselves from the delusions of the media to boldly and creatively attack these topics, topics which concern us all.
The film-makers question the film image whose expression, corrupted by the audiovisual system and its hegemonic ways of distribution (internet, social networks), trivialises the works. The JCC will open their screens wide to a critical public, introducing a range of the new filmwriters’ works, humbly revealing a brave cinema that moves us all. In all, over 200 films will be shown in the various sections, and most of these are recent or previously unreleased.
The magic of film is with us more than ever; the harshness of the subjects and themes does not exclude the beautiful. In this artificial world, the JCC proclaim our festive, uplifting stance throughout this annual meeting.

We invite you to share these moments with us!