You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Maya Angelou, I'll rise
Translated from French into English by Jenny Bright, Tlaxcala
On these days of the fifth anniversary of the flight of General Ben Ali, the only event worth mentioning, before the flare-up of youth in the "other Tunisia" started on Jannuary 17th, was the Tunisian premiere of Leyla Bouzid's first feature film As I open my eyes, screened in the capital and major cities of the country from January 13th, 2016.
For
her first feature film, the 31 year old director achieved a master stroke,
worthy of awards in the last Carthage Film Festival and a series of festivals.
The title of the film, As I open my eyes (Ala halet aini), is that of its
title song*, sung by the protagonist Baya Medhaffar, Farah in the film.
We
are in the summer of 2010, pending the results of the Baccalaureate exam which
Farah, 18 years old, will pass with distinction. Her mother wants her to study
medicine. Farah is not on the same planet: music is her
thing, and she practices
with the group Joujma, whose leader Borhène is her first love.
The
group plays in the bars of Tunis and its suburbs, where beer drinkers
appreciate their mezzoued rock and subversive lyrics. Hayet, the mother, played by singer and graphic
designer Ghalia Ben Ali in her first major screen role, does not agree with the
path taken by Farah, which causes in her a justified anxiety.
Subsequent
events prove she had a reason to worry, but she will eventually follow the path
of her daughter in what the director calls a "reverse transmission".
