1981

“I started from the idea that the more a woman is traditional, the less she needs an association with folklore in terms of sound. When you come across the image of a person whose clothes and attitude are very “conservative”, there’s no need to associate this person with flutes or tambours. At the end, during the party in the caves, the women dance while singing the most ordinary songs, popular street songs really, and I linked this to the fourth dance of Bartók’s “Dance Suite”. I thought it emphasized the inherent nobility of these women. I got the impression that it was original music, written especially for this moment!”

Wanneer ik voorstel om een boek te schrijven onder het uithangsbord van het camereren, wordt camereren de vlag waarvan ik de drager ben, met andere woorden de enseigne, terwijl uit dat woord de infinitief onderwijzen [enseigner] is ontstaan, wat nog een heel ander verhaal is.

In 1982 debuteerde de Belgische filmcriticus/docent/academicus/televisieproducent en -programmator Eric de Kuyper met Casta Diva, een film die internationaal meteen werd opgemerkt. Deze tekst is zijn toelichting bij de subsidieaanvraag voor het Nederlands filmfonds, waarin hij vooral tracht zijn fascinatie te omschrijven en niet via woorden de beelden te evoceren. “Mijn weigering om een klassiek scenario te schrijven [mag] geïnterpreteerd worden als functioneel. In die zin dat ik van mening ben dat: 1. niet alle films ‘klassieke speelfilms’ hoeven te zijn; 2. men in bepaalde contextuele (voornamelijk financiële) omstandigheden naar andere filmvormen moet streven. Geen speelfilm betekent dus niet automatisch een ‘documentaire’ of ‘dus, een experimentele film’.”

I think of myself as someone who has an instinctual understanding of what it is to be a minority person. That is someone whose existence is highly marginal in the society and understands it in the gut but will not be dominated by it. Therefore, I refuse all of those labels, such as Black Woman Filmmaker, because I believe in my work as something that can be looked at without labels.

“The International Women’s Year provided me with the opportunity to make it [Fatma 75]. I figured that, for the first Tunisian film entirely devoted to this subject, I must not resort to fiction but make an analytical work. Through this film, I set about demystifying what is called ‘the miracle of Tunisian women’s emancipation’.”

“I started from the idea that the more a woman is traditional, the less she needs an association with folklore in terms of sound. When you come across the image of a person whose clothes and attitude are very “conservative”, there’s no need to associate this person with flutes or tambours. At the end, during the party in the caves, the women dance while singing the most ordinary songs, popular street songs really, and I linked this to the fourth dance of Bartók’s “Dance Suite”. I thought it emphasized the inherent nobility of these women. I got the impression that it was original music, written especially for this moment!”

“[Fertile Memory] is the result of several years of work. I made several reports in the occupied territories, but I also have to say that the film was beyond me. The Palestinian question is basically an issue of oppression: an oppression that dominates the world. I said to myself that I would be able to give the Palestinian question a new dimension by talking about the most oppressed. I thought that women would help bring out all the contradictions.”

[C]’est le résultat de plusieurs années de travail, j’ai fait plusieurs reportages dans les territoires occupés, mais je dois dire aussi que le film m’a dépassé. Au fond, c’est quoi le problème palestinien, c’est le problème de l’oppression : une oppression qui domine le monde. Je me suis dit que c’était en parlant des plus opprimés que je parviendrai à donner une dimension au problème palestinien. J’ai pensé que la femme permettrait de faire ressortir toutes les contradictions.

The source that irrigates Fertile Memory springs from two poles that constitute the foundations and permanence of the Palestinian soul: usurped land and women. Few films show daily life in the physical and temporal reality (32 years for Mrs Farah Hatoum) of the Israeli occupation. And if these films exist, their lack of credibility is such that at best, we make do with imagining the thoughts behind the gestures and gazes – the deepest dimension of which only the prism of culture will render.

La mémoire fertile jaillit de deux pôles qui constituent les fondements et la pérennité de l’âme palestinienne : la terre usurpée et la femme. Rares sont les films qui donnent à voir le quotidien vécu dans la réalité physique et temporelle (32 ans pour Mme Farah Hatoum) de l’occupation israélienne. Ou, lorsque ces films sont, leur non-crédibilité est telle qu’on se contente dans le meilleur des cas, de deviner les pensées qui habitent gestes et regards et que seul, le prisme de la culture, nous restitue dans leur dimension profonde.