Tahar Cheriaa

Tahar Cheriaa was born on the seventh of December 1927 at Sayada, in the Monastir Governorate of the French Protectorate of Tunisia, the son of a Tunisian family of the principal coastal Sahelian Tunisian-Arabic community. He was raised in the coastal Tunisian community of Sayada and the principal Tunis Sufi-Arabic scholarly community of the late-colonial Tunis.

He completed his secondary education at the Sadiki College at Tunis in 1947 — the principal late-colonial Tunisian institute for the Tunisian Arab-Muslim elite — and the licence in literature at the Sorbonne at Paris in 1953.

He was hired in 1953 by the Tunisian newspaper L'Action at Tunis as principal cinema critic — and held the principal L'Action cinema-critic position from 1953 to 1960.

He joined the Tunisian Ministry of Culture at Tunis in 1960 at the principal post-independence Tunisian state-building period as principal head of cinema — and held the principal Ministry of Culture head-of-cinema position from 1960 to 1969.

He founded the Carthage Film Festival at Tunis in October 1966 — the principal Pan-African and Pan-Arab film festival of the post-colonial period — and held the Carthage Film Festival direction from 1966 to 1970. The Carthage Film Festival was at the principal founding period the principal first international film festival on the African continent open to African and Arab cinema.

He was the principal critical theorist of African cinema across the 1960s and 1970s — and published the principal monograph Écrans d'abondance ou cinéma de libération en Afrique? at Tunis in 1978 — the principal theoretical statement of African cinema as anti-colonial liberation art.

He co-founded with the principal Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembène (placed in this archive) the Pan-African Federation of Filmmakers (FEPACI) at Algiers in October 1969 — and held the principal FEPACI North African vice-presidency from 1969 to 1980.

He was named in 1980 the principal UNESCO regional cinema adviser for Africa at Dakar — and held the principal UNESCO cinema-adviser position from 1980 to 1990. Across the principal UNESCO decade he produced the principal African-cinema infrastructure reports for UNESCO and the principal Pan-African Cinema-and-Audiovisual report of 1985.

He was the principal critical mentor of three generations of African and Arab filmmakers — including Ousmane Sembène, Med Hondo (placed in this archive), Souleymane Cissé, Idrissa Ouédraogo (placed in this archive), Youssef Chahine, and the principal FESPACO Étalon de Yennenga laureates from the founding period through the 2000s.

He died at Tunis on the fourth of November 2010 of complications of a long illness, at eighty-two.

He is honored here as the founder of the Carthage Film Festival.