Video | 15 min | 2017 | Tunisia & France
For over 700 years, thousands of Jews lived in the Jewish quarter of Tunis, El Hara. Albert Memmi grew up in this neighborhood. As a Tunisian Jew, he struggled to find his place between the European colonizers and the Muslim colonized. Since then, the neighborhood’s Jewish residents have moved on, but Memmi’s memories still dwell here. EL HARA visually drifts through this neighborhood 75 years after his departure, weaving together reflections of one of the world’s most important writers on the lasting effects of colonialism, domination, and emigration.
Atlanta Film Festival (2017); Washington Jewish Film Festival (2017); Toronto Jewish Film Festival (2017); Santa Cruz Jewish Film Festival (2017); Port Townsend Film Festival (2017); Mountain Film Festival (2017); LA Sephardic Film Festival (2017); Rome International Film Festival (2017); Alexandria Film Festival (2017); New York Jewish Film Festival (2018); Atlanta Jewish Film Festival (2018); Herceg Novi Film Festival (2018); New York Sephardic Film Festival (2019); Musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaïsme, Paris; CUNY’s Sandra K. Wasserman Jewish Studies Center (2023); Centre d’Études Maghrebines, Tunis (2023); * Pomegranate Award for Rising Star: 22nd New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival; *Jewish Film Institute’s Online Short of the Month