Tunisian Cinema after the Arab Spring: Portrait of a Nation in Transition

Abstract

In the closing scene of The Last of Us (2016), we see the torso of a young black man who stands naked before a clearing in the forest. As he gazes out at a cascade of water tumbling down to a rocky pool below, the young man's image gradually fades away, absorbed into the landscape. Nothing about this scene, from the blackness of the protagonist to the coniferous forest, has any clear reference point in Tunisian national cinema. Indeed, director Ala Eddine Slim has expressed distaste for being classified as a regional filmmaker, preferring that his work be seen as international, transcending borders. And yet, to the familiar eye, this film belongs unmistakably to Tunisia's postrevolutionary political transition, a time fraught with unpredictable shifts in national identity and the contours of the state. Slim is part of a new generation of Tunisian filmmakers who have won critical acclaim on the international festival circuit since the 2011 revolution. More than a burst of creative energy released by the demise of autocratic rule, their experimental aesthetic emerges, in part, from struggles within Tunisian filmmaking establishment that have shaped the conditions of production under political transition. In this essay, I track the intergenerational conflicts that have prompted to the recent extroversion of young Tunisian filmmakers, who have set their sights beyond the nation for funding and recognition.