"May God protect you": one month after the attack in Djerba, Cléo Cohen presents her film in Tunisia
It was a month ago, on May 10, a member of the security forces opened fire near the synagogue of Djerba. A shootout in which two Jewish pilgrims and three Tunisian policemen were killed. Coincidentally, it was also this week that a young French woman, Cléo Cohen, presented in Tunis the film that traces the journey of her family of Tunisian and Jewish origin. The 29-year-old was in the synagogue on the night of the attack. The screening in Tunis in this context was necessarily moving for her.
The Ghriba synagogue in Djerba, Tunisia. (Illustrative image) AFP - FETHI BELAID
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with our correspondent in Tunis, Amira Souilem
A grandmother who teaches Arabic to her little girl of almost thirty years. In the film May God Protect You, Cléo Cohen tells the story of her Tunisian Jewish grandparents who left Tunis, death in their souls, nearly fifty years ago.
« It was a way to revisit family history from my point of view because it's a film about me, which is very focused on my own quest for Arabness, my quest for this story, to put evils that have never been put on exile on heartbreak. »
This documentary, broadcast on France 3 last summer, is a turning point in the young woman's life. The filming makes her want to pick up where she left off. She settled in Tunis. Like it. Then came the attack in Djerba a month ago.
She was in the synagogue during the attack. "I come from a family that left following anti-Semitic riots in Tunis in June '67. I have heard these stories all my life so the fact of being myself confronted with an anti-Semitic attack, while I made this step of return, it gives the impression a little unpleasant that history repeats itself but at the same time I have a very strong love for Tunisia and despite everything, we undertook to sew this link with this country. Me, I want to continue, for now, to sew again.
»> READ ALSO: Tunisia: after the attack of Djerba, the Jewish community divided between anger and disbelief
An attack that gives a new relief to the title of the documentary. May God protect you, a phrase from his grandmother that now seems to have been premonitory.
MAY GOD BE WITH YOU, Cléo Cohen - Extract 1 with english subtitles from Petit à petit production on Vimeo.
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- Tunisia
- Terrorism
- Cinema
- Judaism