A Scent of Jasmine from the Sea: Representations of Tunis in Villa Jasmin by Férid Boughedir and Le chant des mariées by Karin Albou

Abstract

The focus of this essay is the representations of Tunis in the telefilm Villa Jasmin (Villa Jasmine) by Ferid Boughedir and the film Le chant de mariees (The Wedding Song) by Karin Albou, each produced in 2008. The two films depict Tunis during the Nazi occupation from November 1942 to May 1943, rather neglected in the European and Mediterranean archives. Tunis perpetuates, through a variety of forms, the myth of a “city of peaceful coexistence”; the image of a city hovering between tradition and innovation; a “piece of land” that preserves the roots as well as the graves of those different communities scattered across the Mediterranean region. Ferid Boughedir and Karin Albou offer a more complex and interesting representations of this Mediterranean city.