- Arguments:
- Cineteca di Bologna
- Starring:
- Samama Chikly
If cinema in Europe owes everything to the Lumiere brothers (this year we celebrate the 120th anniversary of their creation), in Africa the discovery of the magic of the big screen can be attributed entirely to Albert Samama Chikly, contemporary inventors of cinema, but unlike the famous brothers is not known even to insiders. Chikly led, first, the short films of the Lumière in Tunis, organizing the projection in a shop in the city. Using the ancestor of the modern projector, which had the evocative name of Lanterna Magica and that worked using images printed on sheets of glass, he has set up a program of just over ten minutes, with The output from the workshops Lumière and The arrival of the train . He was responsible for the first shooting from the top of the city of Tunis, the first experiments of reportage (he followed the French army during the First World War and the tragedy of the earthquake of Messina) and the first feature films in the history of African cinema.
a series of coincidences and encounters the Film Festival in Burkina Faso and Carthage, the staff of the Cineteca di Bologna came into possession of the material produced by Chikly that was not lost and has set up an exhibition on the history of the director. A story of adventure, travel, scientific discoveries, but most of curiosity, the quality that characterized Samama Chikly since adolescence. Son of one of the bankers of the monarch of Tunis, Chikly comes from a wealthy Jewish family. It is said that his father had gained French citizenship because he had donated three thoroughbred to Napoleon III, who, I greatly appreciated the gift, returned the gesture allowing him to become a citizen of Paris. So even Samama Chickly was able to attend the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the French capital and develop a modern thought and free.
name, Chikly, is just what the islet north of Lake Tunis, today it characterized by a wild and home to a nature reserve. When the father became owner of the Roman fortress which once stood on the island, Albert Samama renamed rule and declared himself ruler of Chikly. During the Belle Epoque the island became the ideal setting for parties, picnics with friends and historical re-enactments in costume. His life is a continuous search for adventure: 16 years Samama Chikly embarks as a sailor to reach the Antilles, 17 comes up in Australia. And then there is the passion for technological innovations. Few months after the discovery of X-rays in Germany, Chikly buy a device that learns to use a self-taught, after a series of experiments on animals and its arts. Put this knowledge available to the hospital of Tunis who could not afford to bear the cost of such an apparatus. Same thing with the radio. Just two years after the discovery of Guglielmo Marconi, Chikly you install the equipment in his studio and disseminates the island of repeaters for his experiments. Did he take your bike in Africa, with which he then traveled a lot. Photography becomes the instrument with which fully expresses his curiosity. At first it is just trial and error, conducts experiments on exposure times, exploits the eclipse of 1908 in Tunis to make the first night shots and captures the fireworks of July 14, the feast of the storming of the Bastille. But the passion for cinema not long in coming. Also is a pioneer in this field Chikly: with an expert pilot is developing a balloon, a first in Tunisia, thanks to which we will offer the first aerial views of the city. Forty years before Jacques-Yves Cousteau, Chikly, with a prototype of a submarine that was to be used for sponge fishing, goes down under water to shoot and write.
It was a photographer, pioneer, and especially avant-garde filmmaking. Albert Samama Chikly brought to Africa for the first cycle, but also X-ray machine Now the Cineteca di Bologna dedicates a photo exhibition and presents his films and documentaries. The find most interesting is his movie of 1912 on the ship Carthage, blocked by the Italian navy near Sardinia on suspicion of carrying an aircraft to Turkish troops in Libya.
is in fact also a journalist and his highest aspiration is just to document a world evolving under the pressure of new technologies and new inventions. But always with an eye to his country, Tunisia. One of its biggest projects, which has not yet been realized, it was a head of the country, for which Chikly had written six books and took several photos on all expressions of human work: the pressing of the olives, fishing , the first agricultural machinery, weaving of wool. The book with the cover already and written texts not found realization because the first war world and Samama Chikly is called to be part of the division of the army of photographers and documentarians Francesce. It’s amazing how even in this difficult situation will continue to experience the battle of Verdun, for example, it is an opportunity to test the trucks film. Chikly mount the camera on the tracks that had been left by the Germans to retreat. Even in a context of horror like the war interest in the language of film goes on.
His studies will find ultimate expression in the first feature films of the African continent. Zohra , projected for first time December 21, 1922 at the cinema Nunez Tunis, sees the daughter of Samama Chikly, Haydée, engaged in the role of protagonist, a writer and editor, another sign of open-mindedness of the director. It is the story of a young French girl who survives a shipwreck on the coast of Tunisia and is rescued by a family of Bedouin until one day an airplane does not land to take the girl and bring her back to France. Haydée became the first actress of the African continent attracting upon himself the interests of all foreign productions that have to make films in Tunisia. Samama Chikly the immortalize, for example, on the set of The Arabic of Rex Ingram. Ain El-Ghazel is the second feature by the director of Tunisia. Filmed in 1924 in the gardens of the palace of the king of Tunis, can be considered an anticipation of feminist ideology: also written by Haydée, he tells the story of a young man who, to avoid an arranged marriage, flees with the boy she loves to end suicidal when he will be killed.
Chikly died rather young for lung cancer. Most likely to cause the disease were the years spent at the front, during which Samama Chikly never wanted to wear gas masks, would be a hindrance to the realization of the shooting. In a letter written by Bianca Ferrero, wife Samama Chikly, Italian descendant of the Savoy, it is argued that all the photographic equipment of the director has been sent to a museum in Bologna. “We looked everywhere we could not find anything,” says Cecilia Cenciarelli curator of the exhibition. “From Bologna we extended the search to the museums of Turin, the private collections, to the major European museums, but to no avail.” One possible explanation is that the name may have been written differently. “We will start again research in Italian archives with this in mind, the thought that the cameras and cameras Chikly can be in our country intrigues us too.”
