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Press Release Cinematic
Art as Way of Opposing The
Tunisian film director Nouri Bouzid will be awarded the Ibn Rushd
Prize for Freedom of Thought 2007 ( The Prize competition of
the Ibn Rushd Fund for Freedom of Thought was announced in the
beginning of 2007 to be awarded to „an Arab film maker, who has dedicated
himself to freedom and democracy and has tackled the problems of social and
political taboos through his works, critically investigating related
phenomena and practices from a new perspective“.
Nouri Bouzid (*1945) is one
of the most dinstinguished and successful film directors in the Arab world. Having
grown up in the industrial city of Sfax (second biggest city in Tunisia), he
goes to Belgium as a young man to study drama and film production at the
Institut National Superieur des Arts du Spectacle (INSAS) between 1989 and
1972 after which he returns to Tunisia in 1972. For his membership of the
GEAST (Groupe d’Etudes et d’Action Socialiste Tunisien) Nouri Bouzid was
imprisoned for five years by the Tunisian government. His experience of
humiliation and torture in prison has shapen the at
that time still young and frail Bouzid and left its marks on his future film
work. In 1986 he produces his
first own feature film „L`homme de cendres“ (Man
Made of Ash), which deals with
homosexuality. Bouzid has experienced sexual abuse for himself. His film was
shown in the official selection in In cooperation with other
artists Bouzid shows his critical position towards the American gulf-war in a
short-film of 1990. In 1992 he again dedicated
himself to a greater project. He dealt with the problem of sex tourism in his
film „Bezness“. The title is a parody of the English word „business“. Tourism
is one of the main sources of income of the Tunisian state. First, the
government withdrew its subvention and allowance for filming in the capital. Only
when the film is acknowledged worldwide it is shown on Tunisian television. This is mainly Bouzid’s
main criticism, that in modern societies people and ideals are being judged
only according to materialistic standards. Bouzid is mainly interested in
people’s feelings and emotions, in people who have been injured, because they
are torn between the apparently secure coordinates of their sociocultural
establishment and the slackening of Western modernism. In his last film „Making
of“ (Arabic „Akhir film“, which means = „The Last Film“), which was awarded
first prize on the film festival of Carthage in 2006, Bouzid concerns himself
with the question of why young men are willing to take their lives in a
suicide bombing. In an interview with Larissa Bender he speaks of the
forlornness of Arab youth on the spiritual level and their „desperation with
regard to economy“. This prepares the ground for fundamental Islam, which
knows how to use the interior gagging in rigid social structures and the
exterior rage against the presumptuousness of Western policy in their region.
„It becomes obvious in this film who has the
responsibility... We are all responsible: the police is responsible, the
absence of freedom is responsible, the family structure, the failure of
education system... we all have prepared the young man and Islamists have
plucked him.“ Nouri Bouzid will
personally travel from A reception with tea and
bakhlava will conclude the celebrations and leave room for personal
discussion. Short biography of the prize
winner Short biographies of members of
the jury Ibn Rushd Fund for Freedom of Thought Gitschinerstr.
17, 10969 Berlin Tel.:
0049 (0) 30-6158596 Fax: 0049
(0) 721-9158750 |
