Qualification: Beutset
Address: Alicia Mendy
Country: Senegal
Year: 2024
Note: Short film
Artistic diasporas do not stop provoking not only the reflection on the origins and how we perceive them, but also the borders shake, in this case audiovisual. If the pioneers of the African cinemas were looking for a critical, but simple speech, the new waves of filmmakers transcend the schemes. The case of the Swiss-Senegalese filmmaker Alicia Mendy is proof of this. The science fiction short Beutset (The Awakening) Draw a dystopic Dakar in which parallels could be sought with any of the world’s great capitals.
History shows a population contaminated by a virus that has infected water and has to eat black or pink pills – allusion to survival or sleep, respectively – to alleviate its effects. But what happens if precariousness and poverty cause you not to take either? The protagonist, Alioune, guided by a wise man who sells coffee in the street, symbolizes spiritual awakening and resilience to question pharmaceutical multinationals and manipulation of mass media.
With clear allusions to Matrix (1999), Mendy’s tape calls rebellion against a society dominated by unbridled consumption. And for this he uses a precious photograph that plays with the high contrasts, frantic and liberating dances and a music composed of the director herself.
Qualification: Les Enfants Rouces
Address: Lofti Achour
Country: Tunisia
Year: 2024
The initial alert – “based on real events” – places viewers in front of a heartbreaking film. In November 2015 Tunisia dawned with the murder of a 16 -year -old shepherd in the mountains of Mghila for an Islamist command. The thorough staging of the director Lofti Achour faithfully recreates the context of the facts. For this, it has also had recruited actors in this remote province of the country and has filmed in the local dialect. The Tunisian filmmaker wanted a subjective story through the look of Ashraf, 14, a direct witness of the crime, to which the terrorists forgave their lives to be able to carry the head of their cousin Nazir to his people and spread his message of terror there. A work that invites you to reflect on a particularly turbulent period of the recent history of Tunisia, divided by the remains of the dictator Ben Ali – which ended in 2011 – and the rise of the Islamist movement.
