During a report on community clashes in the South of the Algeria, the journalist Ibn Battuta retraces the forgotten footsteps of the Zendj uprising against the Abbasid Caliphate in Iraq in the 8th and 9th century. Three years of filming for a movie that was started before the upraising against the regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and the war in Syria.
"Zendj Revolution" was a very difficult film to produce and to finish. We started shooting the film three years ago, on November 17, 2010 (...). The creation of this film is also a paradox, because it’s a film about the persistence of possibility of revolt, revolution, and refusing oppression. We started it even before the first riots that led to the Tunisian revolution, before the movements to overthrow regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen.
That’s the paradox: We started something, and continued as it took shape before our eyes in Beirut. This film that explored the possibility of refusing oppression — this was one of the film’s main themes — was compounded by what was happening in the background — since we were listening to the radio and watching television while shooting the film in Beirut."
Followed by a discussion with Tariq Teguia and Alain Brossat.
