تحت الشجرة Taht el Karmouss (aka Sous les figues) (Under the Fig Trees, 2022)

I’m working through fuller reviews from my list of favourite films of 2022 (here) but among them are a few that I wasn’t expecting, like this gentle, lilting Kiarostami riff in the fig orchards (rather than olives), structured as a series of two-handers between various characters over the course of a couple of working days (or maybe it’s just one, I can’t quite recall). In any case, a fine film with a predominantly woman-centric cast and crew.

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This is a rather gentle film with some darker undertones as a group of (primarily) young women come together picking figs in an orchard, or at least I’d say that was the focus of the film, whose single setting means this functions as a sort of chamber drama. Indeed, the group of pickers includes some older women and men, who have a choral role to play, singing and commenting on the kids’ actions, and some young men of various types, including a rather sleazy and opportunistic boss. Throughout the day various pairings of these characters get together and hash things out, and while there is no big reveal or drama to speak of, a number of smaller stories play out in a naturalistic way. It’s all very lovely, though you’ll need to take a moment to get into its rhythms, in a setting — and with a title — suggestive of some Kiarostami films, though this is Tunisian (not Iranian).

CREDITS
Director Erige Sehiri أريج السحيري; Writers Sehiri, Ghalya Lacroix غالية لاكروا and Peggy Hamann بيجي هامان; Cinematographer Frida Marzouk فريدا مرزوق; Starring Fidé Fdhili فداء الفضيلي, Feten Fdhili فاتن الفضيلي, Ameni Fdhili أماني الفضيلي; Length 92 minutes.
Seen at the Embassy, Wellington, Sunday 30 October 2022.

Dhalinyaro (aka Youth, 2018)

My main instinct with this film is to hold it back for my Global Cinema series, as I can’t imagine there are a huge number of other Djiboutian films to cover. Still, I like a challenge so hopefully I can find another one to cover when I get to the Ds. In the meantime, this is one of the films I’ve seen in the cinema since I arrived in New Zealand, and I thought broadly favourably about it.

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A lot of the drama within this film is somewhat programmatic, in the sense of taking three young women from different walks of life and pushing them together for the sake of narrative expediency. Still, I can’t fault any of the spirited acting from the three leads, and needless to say there aren’t a whole lot of Djiboutian films that I can think of, so it’s just interesting to get an idea of the country. It follows the familiar movements of the coming of age film, as all three study for the college entrance exam, with varying levels of commitment. I also occasionally got the feeling that it didn’t quite know how to resolve some of these storylines, but seeing any of the three smiling was just about the happiest experience, and I can’t blame the filmmaker for wanting the best for her characters.

CREDITS
Director Lula Ali Ismaïl لولا علي إسماعيل; Writers Ismaïl and Alexandra Ramniceanu; Cinematographer Jean-Christophe Beauvallet; Starring Amina Mohamed Ali, Tousmo Mouhoumed Mohamed, Bilan Samir Moubus; Length 86 minutes.
Seen at Light House Cuba, Wellington, Thursday 5 November 2020.

Maasai Remix (2019)

There was a small African Film Festival which took place here in Wellington this past weekend, and which will have a (slightly expanded) programme in Auckland at the end of the month. It was a chance to catch up a few recent films, both documentaries and fiction. This one is the former, and while it has a somewhat academic feel to it, it’s still interesting and enlightening about ongoing social justice issues.

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I can’t really fault this documentary, made under the auspices of the University of Michigan (if I deduce correctly from the end credits) and directed by members of the faculty there, in the way that it earnestly tells the story of a few members of the Maasai people, who live in lands in Tanzania and Kenya. Their story, which is a familiar colonial story of dispossession from areas of the greatest natural resources, pushing them into less productive lands and leading to protracted and ongoing fights for their rights to their ancestral lands. Access to education is the film’s particular interest, showing how this has helped a number of Maasai to leadership positions on a global stage (specifically, the United Nations), which has in turn allowed them to promote the importance of education amongst their communities, and how those who have been educated (such as Evelyne, whom we see studying in Northern Arizona) have made a material difference to their own lives and that of their families. There are a number of interviews with each of them over a course of years, with some fairly dry footage of them at the UN, but also in their villages (which in the case of these Maasai are in Tanzania), and it’s certainly interesting to see. I suppose it has a certain didactic feeling, as you might expect from a university-sponsored public education documentary, but it provides some interesting context to indigenous rights in this part of the continent.

CREDITS
Directors Ron Mulvihill and Kelly Askew; Cinematographer Mulvihill; Length 67 minutes.
Seen at Light House Cuba, Wellington, Sunday 8 November 2020.