To precede the screening:
The Albert Samama Chikli fund: a work in progress
Presentation of the Albert Samama Chikli fund by Elena Correra and Mariann Lewinsky

SAMAMA CHIKLI RECOVERED – ZOHRA 100
Born 150 years ago in Tunis in 1872, Albert Samama Chikli is known for having directed and produced Zohra in 1922. This work is considered to be the first Tunisian fiction film, although it survives only in fragmentary form. Since we presented this elusive prince of pioneers at Il Cinema Ritrovato in 2015, traces of more than 50 as-yet unknown nonfiction films of Albert Samama Chikli, shot between 1905 and 1925, and new facets of his fascinatingly modern personality have been revealed by the contents of his personal archives, now in the Fototeca of the Cineteca di Bologna. The pandemic and the lockdowns have interrupted the processing of this large collection of photographs and documents for two years and delayed all our projects; we had to postpone our plans for a major presentation.
But Zohra and Samama Chikli deserve a celebratory homage this year. We mostly concentrate on the surviving films from 1922, several of them newly identified documentaries and newsreel items. The writer and star of Zohra was Samama Chikli’s daughter Haydée, then aged 16. Her appearance in the final shot of La Récolte de l’olive en Tunisie allowed us to identify this film as a work of her father. (She does a publicity spot for olive oil, dressed as a Nomad girl.) The research leading to the identification of a film is often full of thrills and wonderful moments, this was also the case with Les Écoles de l’Alliance israélite universelle en Tunisie and Abd el-Kader.
We would like to express our heartfelt thanks to Djaouida and Paul Vaughan, Liliane Barda, Mohammed Challouf and Béatrice de Pastre (CNC AFF) for their support and help. Special thanks go to Manuela Padoan (Gaumont Pathé Archives).

Mariann Lewinsky and Antonio Bigini