“Today, Sunday 3 December, at half past four: matinée concert, Cinémato-Chikli, Emrof the Conjurer, Grand Arab Concert, Arab and Egyptian Songs and Dances, featuring Leïla Sfez, the Behaïla Sisters, Bibiya Samama, Flifla and four Musicians” (“La Dépêche tunisienne”, 3 December 1905).

In late 1905 Albert Samama Chikli organised several film screenings as part of variety shows at the Théâtre Municipal in Sfax and the Tunis Casino. From the advertisements in the daily “La Dépêche tunisienne” we gather that he presented mostly Pathé comedies, screening them in varying combinations. Several of the titles survive and are included in our approximative reconstruction, among them the hilarious Dix femmes pour un mari, the salacious and sophisticated La Confession (being a silent film, we cannot hear the lovely Renée Doux’s account of a night of sex, but every word can be understood), and the rather crass Erreur de porte. As a stand-in for the live performances of Emrof, a French magician (Claire Forme, 1848-1924), and the singers and dancers, we use a film by magician Gaston Velle and an Algerian scène de danse to frame the programme.

“La Dépêche tunisienne” also reveals a most important fact: there were “diverses vues inédites de Tunisie” on the bill, and of these, La Pêche au thon de Sidi Daoud and Les Courses de Tunis were undoubtedly by Albert Samama (the titles also appear in his autograph list “Negatif ma collection Tunis”), the two oldest known films shot in Tunisia by a local filmmaker. I suspect that Samama organised his itinerant pop-up Cinémato-Chikli with the main purpose of showing his own films, shot in summer 1905 with his newly aquired Caméra Grand Modèle, and that he bought a projector and a number of prints from Pathé along with the camera. Miraculously, La Pêche au thon de Sidi Daoud survives. This film, distributed internationally by Urban and Eclipse, marks the beginning of Samama’s international career as a filmmaker that would span 20 years.

Mariann Lewinsky