INTERMEDIATE: Tunisian actress and filmmaker Afef Ben Mahmoud has taken over as director of the eighth edition of the Gabès Cinema Festival of Tunisia (Gabès Cinéma Fen), which celebrates the moving image through cinema, video art and immersive works.
Launched in 2019, the festival also taps into the environmental challenges facing the Mediterranean port city of Gabès in Southern Tunisia, linked to an aging chemical factory that produces phosphate fertilizers, as a place to think about a different future for the city and its population.
Ben Mahmoud is well known around the world for his roles in Nouri Bouzid’s drama Scarecrows, about two young women who were tortured by ISIS fighters in Syria, and Mehdi Hmili’s Broadcastingabout a woman trying to rebuild her life after being arrested for adultery, while recently appearing in a boxing match. Round 13 by Mohamed Ali Nahdi.
He made his directorial debut again in 2023 with the action drama Backstage, about a lost theater group in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains, co-directed by Khalil Benkirane, well-known in the Arab world’s indie movie scene as Head of Grants at Qatar’s Doha Film Institute. The film was played in the Venice side bar Giornate degli Autori in 2023.
“This selection comes at an important time for Gabès Cinéma Fen, which continues its aesthetic exploration and strengthens its position as an independent festival, open to free forms of cinema and artistic creation,” the festival said in a statement.
“Since its inception, the festival has aimed to be a meeting place for the visual arts, a place for collective reflection, and a platform for exploration, both in its contribution to the arts and its relationship with the community and the city.”
Ben Mahmoud told Deadline that he participated because the event coincided with his artistic journey, in front of and behind the camera, and his exploration of art and cultural practices in a different way.
“My work has been moving between different forms of expression – performing arts, acting, directing, producing – and this festival combines exactly this disciplinary approach,” he said.
“Since its founding, I have followed Gabès Cinéma Fen with admiration. A festival that supports independent cinema, which includes a strong local presence, and strives for a vision that requires people and beauty. It is not only about programmatic films, but about considering creation as an act of dialogue with a social, environmental, and political context.”
The event’s focus is on building bridges between disciplines and promoting the exchange of ideas between creators and the public through their work, he added.
“This is the basis of my artistic research. I firmly believe that cultural practice can change the way we live in a place and share its stories. In Gabès, a region facing major social and environmental challenges, the festival becomes a place for collective reflection and shared thoughts.”
I The festival will run from April 26 to May 2.
