Selma Baccar

Selma Baccar
BornDecember 15, 1945
Tunis
Occupation(s)filmmaker, producer and politician.
Notable workFatma 75 (1976), El niño de la luna (1989), Khochkhach (2006) and El Jaida (2017).

Selma Baccar or Salma Baccar (born December 15, 1945) is a Tunisian filmmaker, producer and politician. She is considered the first woman to make a featured length film in Tunis.[1][2] Baccar is known for creating manifestos through her films, centered around women's rights in Tunisia.[1]

Early life

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Selma Baccar was born on December 15, 1945, in Tunis. Her family moved to Hammam-Lif when she was seven year old.[1] Baccar was raised as a Muslim by her parents and has done the pilgrimage to Mecca with her family twice; however, Baccar identifies as agnostic.[1] She began to study psychology in 1966 to 1968 in Lausanne, Switzerland. She relocated after 2 years to study film in Paris at Institut Français de Cinéma.[3] She then became a member of the Tunisian Federation of Amateur Filmmakers (Fédération Tunisienne des Cinéastes Amateurs, FTCA), where she worked as an assistant director for a Tunisian television series.[1][3]

Career

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At the age of 21, Baccar began to create short films in 1966, along with other women at the Hammam-Lif amateur film club.[1] Her films revolve around women's issues and rights in Tunisia. Her first short film, made in 1966, was a black and white film called L'Eveil, that tackled women's liberation in Tunisia. L'Eveil later received accolades. Baccar directed her first full-length feature film in 1975 titled Fatma 75, viewed as a "pioneer film" in Tunisia.[4] This was the first full-length feature film directed by a woman and characterised as "a feminist essay film about women's roles in Tunisia."[5] The film uses a didactic style film that addresses feminism in Tunisia[1] and was banned for several years, due to censorship issues in multiple scenes, by the Tunisian Ministry of information, and could not be viewed in commercial movie theatres.[3]

Her second full length film, Habiba M’sika (1994), was a biopic of a famous Tunisian singer and dancer, Marguerite Habiba Msika.[3] Flowers of Oblivion told the story of Zakia, an opium addict in a psychiatric hospital in Vichy-ruled Tunisia in the 1940s.[2] The director owns her own production company under Intermedia Productions alongside other notable female directors, to make films and commercials.[3] Baccar also has produced a number of short films.[6]

Baccar's activism for Tunisian women's rights led her to an active political career and she became a member of the Al Massar political party.[7] In October 2011, Baccar was elected a member to the Constituent Assembly[8] In 2014, she was promoted from vice-president to president of the parliamentary group of Democrats in Tunisia, "the first and only woman to chair a parliamentary bloc."[7]

Filmography

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Feature films

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  • 1976: Fatma 75
  • 1994: Habiba M’sika/La Danse du feu/The Dance of Fire
  • 2006: Knochkhach/La Fleur de l'oubli/The Flower of Oblivion
  • 2017: El Jaida[9]

Other Films

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  • 1966: L'Eveil (Director, short film)
  • 1985: De la toison au fil d'or/The Golden Fleece (director, short film)
  • 1989: Moon Child (Producer, short film)[9]
  • 2010: Baydha (Tabou) (Producer)
  • 2016: Peluche (Producer)

Television series

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  • 1996: Le Secret des métiers
  • 1997: Femmes dans notre mémoire
  • 2002: Farhat Lamor (Joie d'une vie)
  • 2005: Chara Al Hobb
  • 2006: Nwassi w Ateb
  • 2006: Assrar âailya
  • 2007: Chaâbane fi Ramadhane
  • 2007: Kamanjet Sallema
  • 2007: Layali el bidh

Awards

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Honours

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g Stefanie van de Peer, 'An encounter with the doyenne of Tunisian film, Selma Baccar', The Journal of North African Studies, Vol. 16. No. 3, September 2011, pp.471-82. DOI: 10.1080/13629387.2010.527122
  2. ^ a b Florence Martin (2011). "Selma Baccar's Transvergent Spectatorship: Flower of Oblivion (Tunisia, 2006)". Screens and Veils: Maghrebi Women's Cinema. Indiana University Press. pp. 183–209. ISBN 978-0-253-00565-6.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Rebecca Hillauer (2005). Encyclopedia of Arab Women Filmmakers. American Univ in Cairo Press. pp. 375–. ISBN 978-977-424-943-3.
  4. ^ Peer, Stefanie Van de (2012-10-01). "A transnational feminist rereading of post-Third Cinema theory: The case of Maghreb documentary". Journal of African Cinemas. 4 (2): 175–189. doi:10.1386/jac.4.2.175_1. ISSN 1754-9221.
  5. ^ Stefanie Van de Peer (2017). "Chapter 3. Selma Baccar: Non-fiction in Tunisisa, the land of fictions". Negotiating Dissidence: The Pioneering Women of Arab Documentary. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-1-4744-2338-0.
  6. ^ "Selma Baccar: "La cultura es el arma más poderosa contra el terrorismo y el integrismo"". 20 Minutos. October 23, 2018.
  7. ^ a b "Tunisie – ANC : Salma Baccar nouvelle présidente du bloc démocratique". www.tunisienumerique.com (in French). Retrieved 2018-10-19.
  8. ^ Lilia Labidi (2016). "Political, aesthetic, and ethical positions of Tunisian women artists, 2011-2013". In Andrea Khalil (ed.). Gender, Women and the Arab Spring. Routledge. p. 38. ISBN 978-1-317-59916-6.
  9. ^ a b "Selma Baccar". IMDb. Retrieved 2018-10-19.
  10. ^ TAP (2017). "Sfax International Mediterranean Film Festival kicks off". thefreelibrary.com. Retrieved 17 June 2024.
  11. ^ Selma Baccar at IMDb
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