BEDWIN HACKER (2003, Tunisia, 99 min.), directed by Nadia El Fani; screenplay by Nadia El Fani; cinematography by Tarek Ben Abdallah; edited by Juliette Hautbois and Claude Reznik; music by Milton Edouard; with Sonia Hamza (Kalt), Muriel Solvay (Julia/Marianne), Tomer Sisley (Chams), Nadi Saiji (Frida), and Xavier Desplas (Zbor). In French and Arabic with English subtitles.

It’s always the West that creates the images of the rest of the world. Thus, it’s always the Western vision of things that dominates. Arab countries don’t exist in the present world. You can’t get across another message than one of violence, or of uniformity.—Nadia El Fani

The idea of a computer pirate came to me as a way of speaking out. I wanted to say that south of the Mediterranean you can find free spirits. Our images aren’t broadcast to the North, which produces terrible misunderstandings that make people think that we are throwbacks and don’t live in the year 2002.—Nadia El Fani

In the third millennium there are other epochs, other places, other lives. We are not a mirage.—Bedwin Hacker

In the eyes of the Western media, sub-Saharan Africa is a land of disease, atrocities, civil war, superstition, and traditional, long-suffering victims. People north of the Sahara are treated no better. Whether crafty businessmen or fundamentalist Muslims, they rarely emerge from the Casbah without a bowl of cous-cous or a bomb in their hands. Even more limiting is the way that women are portrayed: hidden behind veils and robes, they are essentially non-entities, indistinguishable one from the other, trapped by a monolithic tradition. Bedwin Hacker is a shocking departure from these stereotypes, and a delightful one in many ways.

The film opens with documentary footage of President Truman making a speech against the backdrop of a Tennessee Valley Authority dam. He speaks of the heavy responsibility that the U.S. has to make good use of the new source of power it has been given: nuclear power. And he thanks God for having chosen to give this power to the U.S.A., “a power that ushers us into the greatest epoch of all times.” In the middle of this speech, a crude cartoon camel starts dancing around and sticking out its tongue. This will be the film’s title character, Bedwin Hacker.

Bedwin, we will eventually learn, is the creation of a Tunisian woman named Kalthoum, or Kalt for short, the film’s central character. The product of an intellectual, middle-class family (her father is a scatter-brained and lovable old man of literature), a technical genius, former star student at the French Polytechnical Grand Ecole in Paris, every aspect of her being bespeaks strength (of character), self-assertion (as a woman, as a North African, as a member of the Third World), and liberty (to explore all possibilities). “Bedwin” (which in French is pronounced “Bed-ween” is a homonym for “Bedouine,” a Bedouin woman) will be the weapon that she will direct at the West to proclaim her existence, thanks to her incredible skills as a “Hacker.”

After setting up her satellite dish in a remote, rugged region of Tunisia near the Algerian border, Kalt goes to Paris to rescue her musician friend, Frida, the mother of her young protégée, Qmar. Frida has been arrested as an illegal immigrant and is about to be deported, but Kalt manages to use her hacking abilities to get her released (by making the police computers think Frida is the niece of the King of Morocco!). She then spends the night with a young Franco-Tunisian journalist named Chams, who has been working on a story about Frida and other illegal immigrant women. Their lovemaking is powerful (and completely under her control).

As it happens, Chams’ girlfriend, Julia, is, unbeknownst to him, a member of a secret French police unit specializing in computer espionage (where she is known as Agent Marianne). Her assignment: locate and arrest the creator of Bedwin Hacker. Driven and determined (she never seems to sleep), Julia is herself a computer wizard. The computer code and hacking strategy behind Bedwin seem familiar to her—they remind her of a famous hacker known as Pirate Mirage, and also seem to have something in common with the unknown woman who secured the release of the illegal immigrant Frida. Moreover, as the film goes on, she comes to realize that there is another connection at work—with a female computer genius that she once knew intimately at the Polytechnic. Aided by her assistant, Agent Zbor, Julia starts homing in on her quarry.

Meanwhile, Bedwin’s appearances proliferate after Kalt returns to Tunisia with Frida. The cartoon camel is making illegal forays onto soccer matches, talk shows, and news programs, and his messages are increasingly pointed at the North African expatriate community in Europe. When Bedwin/Kalt urges them to make themselves visible by wearing traditional shoes, masses turn out to do so. Chams’ own sister becomes one of Bedwin Hacker’s fans. It is becoming a huge embarrassment for the government. However, when Kalt and her gang are able to mobilize a mass phone-in directed at La Défense, the huge office complex on the outskirts of Paris, and thereby cut off the power there for 14 hours, the police are sure that they are dealing with terrorists. Which they are, but not the usual sort. Egged on by her boss, Julia becomes increasingly obsessed with tracking down this woman (we even see them in bed together, in what appears to be a fantasy of Julia’s, though it turns out to be something else), wherever it may lead.

Eventually, it will lead her to Tunisia, where Chams has hooked up with Kalt and her gang of liberationists (although Chams writes for the French leftist newspaper Libération, he is no match for this group!). Duped by Julia, Chams nearly gives her access to Kalt’s hard drive, but Kalt is far too clever and careful for him. Chams is ultimately a weak, pathetic character, lost between two worlds. So, Julia must come herself, for the final confrontation.

* * *

This is not a technical error. I march to the beat of my own drum. It’s not over.—Bedwin Hacker

Bedwin Hacker will strike most people as a very unusual film. A quirky, offbeat blend of comedy, social analysis, political satire, and political thriller, the film is above all a call for liberation. The film is dedicated to the director’s grandmother, “who inspires me with the courage to resist.” Kalt comes across as a very modern embodiment of this spirit. In her sleeveless shirts and military caps, liberated sexually and in nearly every other way, a Robin Hood of the internet, she seems to inhabit a world that is never quite up to her speed. She can be very tough, but also compassionate, particularly with the members of the little community that she has formed—her sister Malika, Frida (who turns out to be a famous singer), a dizzy guy who is into potions and herbal medicine, a couple of lesbians, her young ward, Qmar and her father Mehdi. Fiercely loyal to one another and to Kalt’s project, they hang out together, drink and smoke together, dance together at home and in clubs. They are an unusual bunch, and the director admits that they are not typical of Tunisians in general. But people like them do exist in the contemporary Arab world--despite the images that we receive through the media. And Nadia El Fani wants to be sure that we know it.

In the end, this funny little story, with its funny little camel, is broadcasting multiple messages to multiple audiences. It is telling audiences in Tunisia that they need to be both open to freedom at home and firm in standing up to the West. It is telling the expatriate community in Europe and the West that their fates are intertwined with those of the people “back home,” who should neither be looked at with condescension nor forgotten. It is telling us in the West that people in the Third World are not mirages, they exist--and not just as stereotypes. They live in the same modern world that we do, and they demand respect.

* * *

Nadia El Fani was born in Paris in 1960, daughter of a Tunisian father and a French mother. She grew up in Tunis, but moved often between the two countries. Since 1990, she has lived in Sidi Bou, a small village located on the Bay of Carthage.

She began her career in film as an intern on Jerry Schatzberg’s Misunderstood (1982), and worked during the 1980s as an assistant director for a number of renowned directors, such as Roman Polanski, Nouri Bouzid, Romain Goupil, and Franco Zeffirelli. She established her production company, Z’Yeux Noirs Movies, in 1990, and made her first short film, Pour Le Plaisir, that same year. This was followed by Fifty-Fifty Mon Amour (1992), Tanitez-Moi (1993), Tant Qu’Il y aura de la Pelloche (1998). She has also done documentaries and corporate videos. Bedwin Hacker (2003), her first feature film, has won awards at a number of international festivals.

Her next short film, Unissez-Vous, Il N’est Jamais Trop Tard! was part of a series of fifteen short films directed by foreign filmmakers in Paris (including Mostefa Djadjam, who directed Borders) titled Paris La Métisse (2006). She is currently working on her second feature film, V.O., which again sounds rather quirky and metaphorical: it is the story of a 40-something Tunisian woman taxi driver and ventriloquist, who finds that she is not as much in control of her voice as she thinks!

--Notes by Michael Dembrow

RETURN to CFAF17.