“Overcoming Oblivion” brings together three key North African films which impose the subjective power of indigenous oral culture onto the disingenuous objectivity of the image. Through popular poetry or storytelling, all three films aim to “decolonise the screen.” **

Followed by a discussion with the filmmaker, this first out of three sessions features Ahmed Bennys’ “Mohammadia” (1974, Tunisia, 27 min.), a blend between documentary, animation, fiction and Tunisian fedaoui storytelling to recount how the Bey of Tunis sunk the country into debt and brought the incursion of colonialism at the end of the 19th century.

‍