This article was first published on January 26, 2023. While Ashkal, the Tunis investigation, won the Étalon d'or from the Ouagadougou Pan-African Film and Television Festival (Fespaco) this Saturday, March 4, June Afrique makes you rediscover it.
More and more directors from the continent are experimenting with genre cinema with brilliance. Youssef Chebbi is part of that generation. Real cinema has ended within the borders of documentary. Using your imagination, daring to mix the codes of thriller and fantasy to tell a story about society, this is the challenge that the 39-year-old Tunisian filmmaker takes on with flying colors. Presented at Cannes in 2022, Ashkal, Tunis research (running since January 25) won the Yennenga Gold Stallion at the Pan-African Film and Television Festival in Ouagadougou (Fespaco), this Saturday, March 4th.
A display of abundance in ruins
It is in a naturally cinematic setting, far from the postcard we have of Tunisia, that Youssef Chebbi writes his first fiction feature film. Abandoned at the time of the revolution, Gardens of Carthage, an upscale neighborhood imagined in the Ben Ali era and destined for the Tunisian bourgeoisie, is the starting point of this UFO.
Built without consulting the Ministry of Culture, the State Domains or the National Heritage Institute, this extravagant real estate project nevertheless stands on the ruins of the Punic civilization. “Construction has recently resumed. In a year of filming, we were able to see the rapid evolution of the place, certainly aimed at power today, but which remains problematic because it is surrounded by popular neighborhoods and witnesses insolent success. It’s a demonstration of abundance”, explains the director.
charred body
In 2010, at the dawn of the Jasmine Revolution. It is currently in a nobody's land of concrete with infinite labyrinths and where everything seems fixed, that the director sets up his story and takes two inspectors, Batal (Mohamed Houcine Grayaa) and Fatma (Fatma Oussaifi) for a walk. A priorieverything is against the duo, who must soon lead the investigation after the discovery of a charred body, the first in a series of deaths by immolation.
Here, Youssef Chebbi borrows friend movie. He is older and procedural. “He is a pure product of the old regime that carries the stigma of corruption”, summarizes the filmmaker. The young woman is “more sensitive and gravitates towards a world of men without anyone justifying this choice. We don't know his past. that character it allows us to connect with the place.” Just like her, the viewer immersed himself in this concrete and fiery vortex to try to understand the reasons behind the deaths of these individuals. Are they suicides, terrorist crimes, political acts tinged with despair? So many questions that remain unanswered.
Arab Spring
These immolations, however, are reminiscent of the gesture of Mohamed Bouazizi, a young peddler who set himself on fire in front of Sidi Bouzid town hall in December 2010, which became the symbol and trigger of the Arab Spring. American shots pressed into the vertiginous facades of buildings, panoramic views over Tunis… Can we see in this retrofuturistic scenario, alluding to future perspectives and the need for a horizon, an allegory of the Revolution?
Youssef Chebbi is categorical on the subject. “This film is not a tribute or a portrait of the victims, even though it has a political orientation. The fire motif – Ashkal means “shapes, patterns” in Arabic – is symbolic for him here. “Fire explodes the real, because it is part of the legend of Fontes, he analyzes. No images of immolation were ever circulated. Everyone tells their own story and shapes the myth. In the film, the victims welcomed the fire, they made the choice. »
This is the entire genius of this fiction, which manages to transcend reality thanks to its narrative sources. as Atlantic by Mati Diop – a reference to Youssef Chebbi –, which takes a futuristic turn, but portrays the scourge of emigration of young Senegalese workersAshkal draws on science fiction to portray a contemporary Tunisia “that takes time to rebuild”. And who could ultimatelyreborn from delete ashes.
