Anis Achour: on the deserted beach...
Anis Achour, a 43-year-old from Tunisia with a passion for the sea, directs his first documentary "Couleurs et bords sombres" [dark colours and edges], devoted to artists-cum-environmentalists who transform litter washed up by the sea.
Profile by Emmanuel de Solère Stintzy.
Serious and enigmatic music. On the deserted beach, plastic bottles and broken glass have replaced shells and crustaceans... In Ezzahra, a suburb in the south of Tunis, residents and tourists alike appear to have deserted the polluted sea. Only a handful of local environmentalists collect and then transform the waste. From pollution comes brilliant artwork.
"Colour represents life and works of art. The dark symbolises pollution. I wanted to show this contradiction," explains Anis Achour, a 43-year-old cameraman and editor, summing up "Couleurs et bords sombres", his first mini-documentary, which is 19 minutes long. Originally from Djerba, an island in south-eastern Tunisia, the idea came to Anis when he returned to the country in 2011 following the outbreak of war in Libya: "seeing the sea in such bad shape, smelling the unbearable smell of pollution, it makes me sad..."
Passionate about cinema and images, just like one of his uncles, Anis studied editing and mixing at the Higher Institute of Arts and Multimedia Manouba (Institut Supérieur des Arts Multimédia de la Manouba – ISAMM) in Tunis. While there, he also learnt how to make documentaries with Didier Beaudet, "a formidable teacher", who passed away in May 2023.
Anis Achour therefore dedicated this first short film, which he created through Taziri Prod, his production company, and with help from CFI's Intajat Jadida project and advice from his coaches, to his former teacher at ISAMM, but also and especially wanted "to encourage young people to take the initiative like these environmentally conscious artists when looking for work".
Will there be other documentaries?
Iheb Rjeb, 23, has almost always known his cousin, Anis, as someone who "loves to laugh and encourage others, even when times are hard." Saber El Missaoui, who has been working with Anis Achour for around a decade, interviewed some of the protagonists of this first documentary. He confirms: "Always smiling, Anis is a wise man who advises me and absorbs my stress as an inexperienced journalist not always satisfied with my work". For this first film, Anis prefers, as ever, to be positive: "I did my best, though it wasn't easy, as pollution is a delicate subject in our country."
In any event, the initial public reactions on the Barcha YouTube channel are encouraging. "People appreciate these artists who are asking for more documentaries that will make those responsible take action to clean the beaches and find other solutions". Will there be other documentaries and why not a series? This is a question that goes down well, Anis Achour still has plenty of images to show.
Until then, "Couleurs et bords sombres" ends with the sound of waves in the background, and the hope of soon seeing the inhabitants of Ezzahra walking on a clean beach, once again filled with people...
