Tunisian Film Fest to end today

Kolkata: For the first time, a Tunisian Film Festival is being held in the city at the Nandan premises.The festival is being hosted in a joint collaboration between the Embassy of Tunisia and Forum for Film Studies and Allied Arts. The event began on Friday and will continue till Saturday. The Ambassador of Tunisia to India, Hayat Talbi EP Bilel virtually inaugurated the festival.

Tunisia is the smallest of the nations situated along the Atlas mountain range. It is learnt that the cinema of Tunisia is said to have begun in 1896 when the Lumiere Brothers began showing animated films in the streets of Tunis. Although the majority of films produced in the country are co-productions, over the years the country has churned out cinemas of its own. It is said that during the 1980s, private production companies and studios emerged with the aim to make Tunisia the Mediterranean Hollywood and thereafter many renowned international film directors have shot their films there.

As part of this film festival, a total of four films are being screened at Nandan-III. On the first day, the film A Son by Mehdi Barsaoui was screened. The other film screened on Friday was ‘Look At Me’ by Nejib Belkhadi. On Saturday at 4pm, the festival will screen ‘Tlamess’ by Alaeddine Slim that explores the life of a man who runs away from the army after his mother’s death. It is marked by hypnotic cinematography as he traverses the desert lands and rivers.