The eighth edition of the Luxor African Film Festival will pay tribute to Tunisian cinema and its authors from March 15 to 21, 2019.
The Luxor African Film Festival (LAFF) is one of the projects of the Independent Shabab Foundation (ISF). The idea of its current president author Sayed Fouad was as follows: “Since African films are practically not screened in Egypt, they had to be given a new space.
Besides, the city of Luxor has hardly any cultural or artistic events, so it was the perfect place to decentralize cultural and artistic events that are always held in Cairo and Alexandria.”
But the festival has for some years built a good reputation around this African identity and voices the willingness to become a destination for cinema in the region.
A festival inspired by the Carthage Film Festival (JCC) and which would like to make the most of its experience hence the partnership it signed in 2016 with the JCC. We also learned that the Luxor Festival has also signed another partnership with FIFAK to allow our amateur filmmakers to benefit from the Egyptian experience.
As part of this partnership, Sayed Foued accompanied by Azza Husseini, Director of the Luxor Festival, announced the tribute that will be paid to the Tunisian cinema at the Luxor festival in the 2019 session that will take place next March. “We would like to pay tribute to an authentic and serious Tunisian Cinema like the Carthage Film Festival which is the main showcase”, Sayed Foued said. One of the aspects of this tribute is Tarak Ben Chaabane’s book, which talks about Tunisian cinema during the third millennium in Arabic and French.
In turn, the National Centre of Cinema and Image (CNCI) will select the Tunisian films that will best represent our cinema throughout its history and will be screened in Egypt next March.
On the other hand, an exhibition will be devoted to the posters of Tunisian films that have marked history. A special section will be created for 5 Tunisian films that will be screened in the presence of their directors.
For her part, Azza Husseini said: “We have also planned a major seminar on Tunisian cinema as well as a special issue around its making in Tunisia and the role of the JCC and the CNCI in the development of this cinema”.
After a meeting of principle with Chiraz Latiri Director General of the CNCI around the details of this tribute, it is expected in the coming months that a partnership protocol will be signed between the Luxor Festival and the CNCI.
TunisianMonitorOnline (Salem Trabelsi)
