Redeyef Documentary Film Festival

The Redeyef Documentary Film Festival second edition took place between the 5th and the 13th of September 2015 in Redeyef a small town in the Tunisian mining basin. The event was organised by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung North Africa office in cooperation with Nomad 08-Redeyef association under the theme: “Independent Cinema and Social Struggles” and focused on socio-economic rights and aimed to promote independent cinema in Redeyef as a tool in achieving socio-economic rights. RLS also hoped to stir debates in the community about their most pressing social demands.

The festival included a youth documentary filmmaking workshop which resulted in the production of 4 short documentary films, a children forum theatre workshop, and the open-air free of charge screenings of 10 documentary films in a popular neighborhood. The screenings included short and feature length documentary films from the region which tackle pertinent issues to Redeyef like water issues, women’s rights, migration, and other topics. Most films were screened in the presence of the filmmakers. In addition to the screenings, everyday in the morning following the screening there were animated debates attended by the filmmakers and the audience.

The closing of the festival saw the screening of the films produced by the youth ageing between 15 and 20 and which were very positively welcomed by the audience. It also saw promises from the organisers of an even more robust program in the 2016 edition. It should be mentioned that Redeyef is a marginalised town which suffers a lack of infrastructure, severer problems in terms of access to water, very high unemployment rates, and a total absence of cultural events. Those serious problems exit despite the fact that the town is theoretically one of the richest in Tunisia as it produces tons of phosphate per day. However there is an unequal distribution of resources which made the town rise against the Ben Ali regime on several occasions.