Carthage Film Festival, Tunis hosts cultural event amid decisive political race

The 25th Carthage Film Festival has transformed, since Saturday, Tunis into a cultural capital which has been living at the rhythm of film projections, in an atmosphere still marked by dense political events on the eve of a crucial vote.
Organized between the two rounds of the Tunisian presidential elections, this festival, which still draws large crowds, shows Tunis society’s commitment to this major cultural event days ahead of a poll that will give Tunisia its first ever democratically-elected president since its accession to independence in 1956.
Located, for most of them, along Habib Bourguiba avenue, the major movie theatres of Tunis, including the municipal theatre, “le Mondial” and “le Colisee,” are often jam-packed at each of the festival’s screenings.
Hundreds of students, most of them part of the supervisory staff, roam, nine downtown’s theatres selected for the screening of the festival’s competing movies.
“We will continue with the electoral process once the festival is over,” they said, mentioning briefly the second round of the Presidential elections, scheduled before the end of December.