Tahar Cheriaa: Under the Shadow of the Baobab

Director: Mohamed Challouf

2014 / 70min / DCP

The extraordinary life of Tahar Cheriaa, the father of Pan-African cinema and founder of Africa’s first film festival, Carthage Film Festival (JCC), is documented in Challouf’s Under the Shadow of the Baobab—the title a reference to the “Baobab Group,” consisting of filmmakers, like Ousmane Sembène, Med Hondo, and Haile Gerima, whom the JCC helped to launch into the wider world. The compelling tale—deftly cut by longtime Sembène collaborator Kahéna Attia—of a band of cineastes and cinephiles hailing from all corners of Africa working in concert to challenge the stranglehold held on the continent’s screens by films (and business interests) from abroad, inspired by Cheriaa’s conviction that “whoever controls distribution controls cinema.”

Q&A with Director and Film Curator Mohamed Challouf moderated by Alia Ayman, writer, curator and co-founder of Zawya on Friday, April 17th