1978

Film is nooit enkel het Engelse woord dat voor de geest roept wat in onze taal pellicule heet. Maar dat woord pellicule moest bezet zijn door wat het wou zeggen, en het zijn kleine schilfers van dode huid waar het om gaat; op basis daarvan zegt men filmen en niet pelliculeren.

Woorden hebben een geschiedenis. Wat het woordenboek ons zegt over projecteren, eertijds, roept “buitengooien” op, terwijl het woord project, dat dezelfde oorsprong heeft, ‘alles waarmee de mens beoogt de wereld of zichzelf op een bepaalde manier te wijzigen’ voor de geest haalt.

Fatma 75’s approach is quite original. The film is based on essays and histories written on the Tunisian feminist movement, using fiction to make its message accessible to the general public. Selma baccar: “As for my experience as a woman director, I think it was very important for me. My relationship with the crew and the actors was excellent. The shooting of Fatma 75 was “all roses”. On the other hand, in order to obtain the necessary funding for the production of the film, I felt a great mistrust from some of the people in charge, although I had a special card up my sleeve: a film about women made by a woman. But the problem of film production in Tunisia is the same for men and women: it’s negative for both of them.”

“Given this situation, the three of us – a filmmaker, a critic and a technician in the Arab cinema – have decided to establish an ‘Assistance Fund’ for the self-expression of the Arab woman in the cinema. A yearly prize of 10,000 ff (about $2500) will be awarded to the best script for a short film from those proposals submitted by Arab women undertaking their first film.”

Certainly, The Hour of Liberation has arrived. But what kind of liberation is it? Heiny Srour not only understands it in the political sense of the term, but in a more absolute sense. The liberation of Arab women is at the heart of this film, which has, unfortunately, hardly been screened in our countries. The difficulties encountered during and after the shoot of the film need to be addressed. They give you an idea of what a woman has to face when she decides not to give in and to push her project to the limit...

“Each time I made a film, it was in a given political period; each time I had a political objective, my films couldn’t just be without orientation. That’s not sentimentality. Through a form of sensibility, a political problem emerges. The destruction of Beirut, the children fighting, it means something. I figured this way of showing things could touch people and have a real political impact. People are fed up with the talking. On television, for example, one day they show a representative of the left, the next a representative of the right. Every day, they agree with someone else, and they end up forgetting who’s right or wrong!”

So your film is more a film about space than about women?

Yes, because saying that my film is a film about women doesn’t mean anything. I’ll always make these films... Female bodies, women are my subject. Like a sculptor somehow, who uses a certain material, while another sculptor will use another material. That should mean something, shouldn’t it? I think that’s what the Cinémathèque audience couldn’t stand; I’ve removed men from my film. But what can I say, except that I’ve just shown what exists in reality. I intentionally separated the sexes in the image, as in reality. The intention is feminist, and why not? I wanted to show the number one problem of Algerian women, which is the right to space. Because I was able to verify that the more space the women had, the firmer they stood.

Dans Le miroir, je traite pour la première fois un sujet qui raconte littéralement une histoire vécue. Or, ça fait peur d’évoquer des sensations personnelles qui seront ensuite jugées au tribunal du spectateur. Cela correspond au moment où l'onse force à parler. A-t-on raison en faisant du spectateur le voyeur de ses problèmes personnels ? Est-il certain qu'une histoire de ce type puisse exprimer quelque chose de plus général ?

Marguerite Duras’ Les mains négatives premiered in 1978. Images of a ride through Paris apace with the phrases of Amy Flammers’ violin, entwined with Duras’ own voice. Transcribed, the voice-over reads like a poem.

In 1978 ging Les mains négatives van Marguerite Duras in première. Over de beelden van een autorit door Parijs klinken muzikale frases van Amy Flammers viool, vervlochten met de stem van Duras. De transcriptie van de voice-over laat zich lezen als een gedicht.

Les mains négatives, un court-métrage de Marguerite Duras, sort en 1978. Un long travelling à travers Paris au petit matin se double d’une bande son où s’enchevêtrent les phrases musicales du violon d’Amy Flammers et la voix de Marguerite Duras récitant un texte dont la transcription se lit comme un poème.

« Mais je dis aussi : « Chaque chose dans un film est une forme ». Par là, je voulais m’en prendre aux malentendus habituels sur le documentaire. Ce n’est pas du documentaire, ce n’est pas du vrai non plus: c’est une forme, de la matière formée et transportée, de la fiction. Et puis, je reprends et je dis : « quand même, c’est quelqu’un avec qui j’ai vécu : au revoir ! ». »

“Ik zeg eerst: ‘Alles in een film is een vorm’. Daarmee verzette ik me tegen het wijdverbreide misverstand over de documentaire. Ook al is het documentair, het is niet waar: het is een vorm, materie die bewerkt en verwerkt is, fictie. En daarna neem ik het terug en zeg ik: ‘Het is toch ook iemand met wie ik geleefd heb: tot kijk!’”