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The Carthage Film Days begin on 18 December 2020. An exceptional edition due to the current health context but also due to the special programme of this year which marks the thirty one year of existence of this festival.
Covid 19 will not have been able to beat the JCC Carthage Film Festival 2020. Despite the second wave of this pandemic which has been affecting many countries for several weeks now, the organising committee of the JCC has decided to stay the course and hold this 31st edition from 18 to 23 December 2020. An act of resistance and resilience on the part of the festival team which nevertheless had to postpone the festival by 6 weeks as it was initially scheduled between 7 and 12 November. According to the General Manager of the festival, Ridha Béhi : “The maintenance of the JCC is a will to defend the places of life, debate of ideas and culture which remain one of the most effective bulwarks against ignorance and intolerance. Maintaining the JCC is a choice of culture… a civic choice.”
The 2020 edition of the JCC is therefore special because of the social and health context that surrounds it, but above all because of the programming provided this year. Tributes, previews, best of, favourites, carte blanche and no less than a hundred films will be screened in 16 cinemas. A gigantic organisation which will therefore be entirely face-to-face to the detriment of the digital channel chosen by a good number of festivals in this period of health crisis. This bias reflects the organisers’ desire to put the public at the centre of activities and to attract large numbers of people to the cinemas while respecting barrier measures and the fight against Covid.19 “We have bet on the human and face-to-face, faced with the models of many digital festivals, handicapped by the lack of exchange and generosity… We prefer to reinforce health measures, whatever the cost, and to guarantee copyright, rather than investing in a platform to convey our films.”says Ibrahim Letaief, Artistic Director of the festival.
Films in preview screening during the festival
While the 31st edition of the oldest film festival in Africa will be deprived of the official competition, several events will mark this edition. The opening ceremony will see the screening of 6 short films produced by the Tunisian National Centre for Cinema and Image (CNCI). These short films are “remakes” of 6 African and Tunisian films that marked the festival from its creation in 1966 to the present day. 5 films will be screened in preview during the festival: L’homme qui a vendu sa peau (Tunisia) by Kaouther Ben Hania and La Nuit des Rois (Ivory Coast) Philippe Lacôte which were both selected at the Monstra in Venice, 200 metres (Palestine) by Ameen Nayfeh, Harba (Tunisia) by Ghazi Zaghbani, Disqualifié (Tunisia) by Hamza Ouni.
General program of the festival
In addition to these previews, 4 special sections will also be dedicated to films that have marked the festival since its existence due to their quality and originality. These are the section Best of Feature Films, Best of Short Films, Coup de Coeur and Tanit Tunisiens. The public will have the opportunity to discover or rediscover films such as : Un Fils (Tunisia) by Mehdi Barsaoui, Félicité (Senegal) by Alain Gomis, La Pirogue (Senegal) by Moussa Touré, Teza (Ethiopia) by Haile Gerima, Samba Traoré (Burkina Faso) by Idrissa Ouédraogo, Muna Moto (Cameroon) by Dikongue Pipa, Baara (Mali) by Souleymane Cissé, C’est Eux les Chiens (Morocco) by Hicham Lasri and Examen d’Etat (DRC) by Dieudo Hamadi. The list is far from over.
Filmmakers who will be honoured during the festival
Several tributes will also be paid during the festival. A special tribute will be paid to the Egyptian actor Abdelaziz Makhyoun for his entire career. Tribute will also be paid to 4 directors who have left their mark on African cinema through their talent: the Mauritanian Med Hondo who died in 2019 and to whom we owe films such as Soleil ô (1967) and Sarraounia (1986), the Senegalese Djibril Diop Mambety who died in 1998 and who left his mark on the continent’s cinema with films such as Touki Bouki (1973), La Petite Vendeuse de Soleil (1998), and above all Hyènes (1992) which will be selected in official competition at Cannes. Other directors to whom homage will be paid, Salma Bacar, the first Tunisian director with notable films such as Fatma (1975), La danse de Feu (1994) and Abdeltif Ben Ammar, Tunisian director born in 1943 with films such as Une si simple histoire (1970), Aziza (1980), Le chant de la noria (2002).
In addition to all these screenings, which the public will be able to attend by buying tickets online on Teskerti, the festival team also announced during the press conference held on 8 December last, the setting up of three special screenings: JCC in prisons, Cinema Drive-In and Ciné-Ecoles. With JCC in Prisons, the festival has been working since 2015 to bring films to inmates in partnership with the Ministry of Justice. The Cinema Drive-In will be organised at the parking of the Cité de la Culture, which will be able to accommodate 300 cars for the occasion. With the Ciné-Ecoles section, 4 schools will have the opportunity to screen films by students at the end of their training in their centres.
The festival will also include forums and workshops to the delight of film lovers and filmmakers alike. Read more about JCC
Rostand Wandja
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