Towards a history of the vanishing present

Orient Palace (Collection)
The Interpreter
Fabriques
Et jamais devient:


The Interpreter

2009

Film
Credits

Appendix: Makrem’s Archive

Exhibition views

The Interpreter evokes the time between a clandestine crossing of the Mediterranean Sea at the end of the 1990s and the forced return of some of its young protagonists: Jaouhar and Mohez, two former smugglers, a fisherman and his friend, who arranged the voyage towards Italy.

The film is based on transcripts of conversations and of a recorded interview with Jaouhar and Mohez in their hometown Sayada, a small village near Monastir. It was produced in close collaboration with geographer Makrem Mandhouj and benefitted from elements of his ongoing field research on local and international migration in and from the area of the Tunisian Sahel, in particular his analysis of socio-spatial dynamics in Sayada resulting from these patterns.

In the video, the voice of the narrator reconstructs a fragmentary narrative in Tunisian Arabic dialect and suggests the various acts of translation that embody it. He becomes the "interpreter" of the words of Jaouhar and Mohez, since the recording of their individual accounts could not be publicly disclosed without exposing them. He recalls the conditions under which furtive meetings took place in several places, as well as he comments on the production process of the film itself. The Interpreter evokes the difficulty of putting into narrative one's own history. It calls attention to the impossibility of openly testifying in the context of criminalization of undocumented migration and deprivation of freedom of speech in Tunisia under the regime of former president Ben Ali.

The film retraces the significant sites of the narrative and makes a detour via the recording studio in Tunis where the voices of the film were actually recorded. It ends where the project of crossing had originally been planned and implemented several years earlier – in a plantation of olive trees – refuge of harragas*, alcohol consumers and lovers – which is gradually covered by the expansion of the city and the impressive houses that successful emigrants living in Europe are currently building.

* The Arabic name given to those who cross borders undocumentedly

The Interpreter

a film by
Raphaël Cuomo and Maria Iorio

based on elements of an ongoing field research by geographer
Makrem Mandhouj

performed by
Riad Hamdi

song
Thameur Jabberi
composed for the original soundtrack of a film in progress about Cité Ettadhamen, Tunis, by Rafik Omrani

voices recorded by
DJ Killer
at Rebel Records studio, Tunis

camera and editing
Raphaël Cuomo and Maria Iorio

project assistant and additional sequences
Aymen Omrani

sound
Gilles Aubry

additional recordings
Maria Iorio

translation
Faicel Bahrouni
Pascal Bircher
Makrem Mandhouj

texts adaptation and production assistants
Aymen Omrani
Hanène Srarfi

with the support of
Les Complices*
FMAC Genève
Fondation Erna und Curt Burgauer
Le souvenir du présent

with the support of
Les Complices*
FMAC Genève
Fondation Erna und Curt Burgauer
Le souvenir du présent

special thanks
Makrem Mandhouj
Aymen Omrani

thanks
Andrea Thal - Les Complices*,
Ruth-Theus Baldassarre,
Hassan Boubakri
Abdelhamid Boussoffara,
Nacim Bouida,
Slim Ben Chiek,
Ciro et Geneviève Cuomo,
Moaz Haouari,
Helmi El Khoja,
Zohra Gaiech,
Charles Heller,
Manuela Honegger,
Graziano et Antonietta Iorio,
Famille Mandhouj,
Stéphane Montavon,
Eveline Odermatt,
Fawez Zahmoul - Rebel Records,
Christophe Riedweg,
Naceur Sardi,
Jawer Salki,
Robert Schlicht,
Romana Schmalisch,
Karim Slimen