Tunisia: Gabès Cinéma Fen, the first online cinema festival in the Arab world

Text by: Siegfried Forster

"It was evil for good. This opened the festival to a new audience. Following the confinement due to the coronavirus crisis, the Gabès Cinéma Fen festival offers all its online programming until April 11, free of charge. A first in Tunisia and in the Arab world.

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It is an original cultural initiative and a good opportunity to change the image of Gabès, an industrial city in the south-east of Tunisia, reputed to be one of the most polluted in Africa. In this time of coronavirus and confinement, instead of bringing together film enthusiasts in the theaters of this city of 130,000 inhabitants, this ambitious festival of auteur cinema and art videos invites you to view the films and debate with the filmmakers online. Interview with Sami Tlili, filmmaker and artistic director of the festival.

RFI: This online edition of the Gabès Cinéma Fen festival, how does it represent a first for you and the cinema in Tunisia?

Sami Tlili : This is the first time that we have attended an online festival in Tunisia and also in the Arab world. A first dictated by the circumstances, because this second edition should have taken place in cinemas. Then, with the Covid-19, we had to adapt. It's a young festival, for us, it was important to maintain the momentum of the festival. So, in concert with the team members, the festival audience, film and youth associations in Gabès, we decided to keep the festival online. Both the films and the Video Art section, a flagship section of the festival.

Keeping the festival online was primarily the result of a constraint. Four days after opening, are any benefits already appearing?

Yes, we realized that it was bad for good, because it opened the festival to a new audience. The cinemas have a definite capacity: 300, 500 or 700 seats. On the Internet, there can be more spectators. The festival was supposed to take place in Gabès. Now there are spectators as well in Tunis or in the north or in the south or in other parts of Tunisia. It is also good to open the festival to a new audience, who is not necessarily a film buff, but who, faced with general confinement, is watching and discovering these films by the author and these videos by artists .

Afterwards, I remain convinced that the cinemas remain the appropriate places to screen the films. But, given the exceptional circumstances, exceptional measures are needed. Otherwise, I hope that this situation will be resolved quickly and that people will be able to find cinemas, theaters and art galleries.

Screen capture of film posters presented in international competition online at the Gabès Cinéma Fen Festival in Tunisia, on the Artifiy.tn platform. © GCFEN

You have programmed around forty short and feature films as well as art videos. All this for free. Even recent films with an international career like Tlamess , by the Tunisian Ala Eddine Slim, Portrait of the young girl on fire , by the Frenchwoman Céline Sciamma, Talking About Trees , by the Sudanese Suhaib Gasmelbar or Les Misérables , by Ladj Ly. How did you manage to convince producers and distributors to play the game online?

The competition is open to directors from Arab countries. Then there are sections out of competition such as the World Cinema where international films are screened. Without the solidarity of the directors, distributors and producers, it was impossible to organize this edition. After its first edition, the festival had good feedback and a good reputation for the quality of selection. It is a festival with a clear artistic and political vision. This encouraged distributors and directors to participate. So even when we went online, the majority of film makers supported this initiative, because they trust the festival and support the artistic process of the festival.

In Tunisia, is there a chronology of the media as in France where the law requires a theatrical release at least three or four months before VoD?

Yes, there is this constraint also in Tunisia. But distributors in Tunisia, as well as international distributors, have been lenient and understanding in the face of this crisis. So they were more forgiving and more tolerant. There are films that have made their commercial release, but there are also films that have not made their commercial release. Despite this, directors, producers and distributors have accepted that it can go online, since these are exceptional circumstances.

“It is the first time that we have attended an online festival in Tunisia and also in the Arab world. Sami Tlili, artistic director of Gabès Cinéma Fen, in Tunisia.

In your festival, there is a section with feature films only accessible on the Tunisian territory and another section, with art videos from several continents, available online worldwide. Has this device made it possible to broaden the public beyond Tunisia ?

We were forced to restrict access to films to Tunisia. It was the condition of distributors and producers, and it is understandable. However, the Video Art section is accessible to the whole world. In the interactions on the Festival page, I noticed that there is a new audience. For example, the debate sessions broadcast on the festival's Facebook page are attended by people in Europe, Africa, the Middle East ... This is an advantage offered by this "online" version of the festival. This allowed a new audience to discover and participate in the festival.

The festival takes place on Artify.tn, the first Tunisian streaming platform. Does Artify take advantage of the generalized confinement or is it especially Netflix that takes everything, like almost everywhere in the world.

Of course, Netflix remains the favorite platform for young people, but Artify has noticed a clear increase on their platform since confinement. Afterwards, they also took advantage of the visibility given by the festival.

Screen capture of the movie posters presented online in the Art Video category at the Gabès Cinéma Fen Festival in Tunisia, on the Artify.tn platform. © GCFEN

Gabès Cinéma Fen aims to bring a " reflection on the images of the Arab world ". You want to question " the power of the image and the unfair geography of representation ". What does our era of confinement and the coronavirus crisis inspire in relation to the representation of the Arab world?

There is this obsession, both in Tunisia and in other countries, to always ask the question how the other sees us. I think we have to stop asking ourselves this question and try to be ourselves, to think what we think of ourselves.

In the future, is it conceivable to have, in addition to the festival on site, also a parallel or complementary edition online? Will this first online edition change the future of your festival?

The question arises more and more, given the technological evolution, the situation in the world and the change in the reflexes of the moviegoers. I have noticed, since last year, major international festivals have started to experiment a little with this idea by reducing access, by leaving certain films on their online platform, just for festival goers or professionals.

Is it economically viable?

Our festival is a non-profit festival. Already, at the first edition, the prices were symbolic to allow young people or students to attend the films. The ticket office does not represent a large part in the festival revenues.

► The Gabès Cinéma Fen Festival offers all its online programming from April 3 to 11, 2020 (some of it only for Internet users located in Tunisia).

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