Cinema: Tunis, Napolislam raises public interest at 2015 JCC Pagano, 'despite bombs, this country is more alive than ever'

(ANSAmed) - TUNIS, NOVEMBER 27 - Movie theaters were packed and there were long lines at box offices in Tunis yesterday to watch movies being screened at the 26th edition of the Carthage Film Festival (Journées cinématographiques de Carthage, or JCC), the most important in the country, to fight the fear raised by the latest attack Tuesday claimed by ISIS.



Many young viewers waited on line for the premiere in an Arab country of the controversial Much Loved by French-Moroccan director Nabil Ayouch, banned in Morocco for offending moral values and women, while a more heterogeneous public filled the room of Le Mondial for another premiere in Maghreb, Napolislam, a documentary by Ernesto Pagano on Neapolitans who have converted to Islam. The documentary is part of an event at the JCC this year dedicated to Italian films, together with the film's producers Lorenzo Cioffi and Matteo Parisini.



One day Naples wakes up and converts to Islam: from the Ramadan celebrated in the same square dedicated to the cult of the Madonna del Carmine, to the mosque in Piazza Mercato, from heated debates on the family, to the halal recipes of local delicacies such as zeppole, sfogliatelle and casatiello - this provocation opens ten different stories of conversions to Islam.



''In spite of the bombs, this country is more alive than ever. The huge Mondial room has been almost entirely filled with young Tunisians. An active and intelligent public who understood both the irony and drama in the film'', its director Pagano told ANSAmed. ''Some thanked me for talking about Islam and Muslims without judgement, without depicting them like terrorists. But there are also those who, observing some characters from Napolislam with long beards said: this is the Islam that ruined Tunisia. This is the Islam we are trying to get rid of but which we see rising in Europe. If in Europe we have the equation Muslim-terrorist, here there is one equaling bearded Muslims to terrorist''. (ANSAmed).



