MEDI1TV Afrique : Chronique culture du 2 décembre 2024 - 02/12/2024
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00:00Welcome to Média1 TV and Zoom in this chronic culture on the latest documentary of the
00:14director Simone Bitton, A Thousand and One Days of Hajj Edmond Ayman, Simone Bitton,
00:20who makes us the pleasure and honor of being with us, Simone Bitton, thank you very much
00:25for accepting our invitation. A Thousand and One Days of Hajj Edmond Ayman was presented
00:31in the first world at the last edition of the Marrakech International Film Festival,
00:37you wanted it to be done here, what was your feeling when you met this audience?
00:43It was great, I really wanted the first world to be in Morocco, for me it was unthinkable
00:50to show this film elsewhere than in Morocco in the first world, I did everything, I arranged
00:56to finish it too late for other festivals, too early for others, so that it is presented
01:02here in the first world, it was very important and I think that Hajj would have approved this choice.
01:08So precisely the Hajj that we discover, Edmond Ayman, for those who may have done
01:15literature know him, because I studied him, I can say it at college, so we studied Edmond Ayman
01:20as a poet, but when we see this film we discover another man, in any case those who have not
01:26known him, a generous man who was listening to others, in the house was open, and the way
01:32you told it, this choice you made, did you also want people beyond the poet
01:37to discover this exceptional man, almost a saint we will say? I wanted to
01:44discover the complex and multiple man that he was, that we are all, but still writing
01:53was at the center of his life, so of course he was special, he was someone
02:00unparalleled in the sense of hospitality, of friendship, he had hundreds of friends,
02:07he made friends in a blink of an eye and he chose them, so all this had to be in the film,
02:17but still it is for me his dimension of writer and thinker and man of words, man of culture,
02:23who counted, and to make him known, because a lot of people in Morocco know his name without
02:30having ever read it, and that's why there are a lot of texts of him in the film that I make read on the
02:38screen by his friends, by people who have met him, I made this choice rather than
02:44have them read by an actor, I made the choice that it be the people themselves of his life who
02:52say a few pages of his books. So these people, I will still try to introduce them,
02:58Tozi, Khalil Ghrib, Yammou, Boukia, Reda Brjeloun, Odette, Leila Shahid, Dominique Edde, there are 17,
03:12that's a lot of people in one film, and unfortunately there are a few that I filmed
03:20that I could not include, and many who would have wanted to be in the film and that I could not
03:24film because it was inexhaustible. Edmond's friends were very often much younger than him,
03:31he loved, he had no children, but he loved to surround himself with young people. And so, fortunately,
03:39it united me, his gang, and she, in large part, always among us. So I had only the
03:50embarrassment of choice, and it was a real embarrassment, because all the people I was addressing wanted to be in the film,
03:56wanted to participate, wanted to pay tribute, wanted to tell anecdotes, wanted to read his texts,
04:01and I could not integrate them all. I chose to balance between the different
04:08eras of his life, between the different themes that interested him and that he worked on, literature,
04:15politics, plastic art, simple friendship, that's it. It was a real treat to be able to, in an hour and a half,
04:26give the most complete image of the great complexity that he embodied.
04:34So, you have it, because it must be said that the documentary is in voice-over, you speak,
04:40we hear you, we see you at the end. You said in the documentary that you regretted not being
04:47in Paris as often as you were in Morocco. Is it also a way to
04:53reconcile yourself with yourself, not being able to be here in Morocco, not being able to attend
04:59his funeral? Presenting this documentary, making it happen, is it also a way for you to...
05:07Certainly. I had a filial feeling towards him, and I always had this guilt of having been far away
05:19for the last few years of his life, because the last few years of his life he came back to live
05:23in Morocco, and for me it was the time when I was making films in the Middle East, I was always far away,
05:28I was always very busy. I came to visit him every time I could. Of course,
05:36as soon as I went to Morocco, I went to see him in Rabat, I phoned him from time to time,
05:41but it's true that when he died, I couldn't even attend his funerals,
05:48and it's a guilt that I carried with me. And what was quite beautiful and charming is that
05:55during the shooting, several of the protagonists of my generation that I met,
06:01even if they didn't say it on the screen, they said it to me in private, they said to me,
06:06I feel so guilty, I wasn't there for the last few moments, and I understood that there were several of us
06:11who had the same feeling, but Edmond was very clever, and when he came to Morocco,
06:18all his friends from Paris, including me, knew very well that we were busy and that we were elsewhere,
06:23and in a month, he made a new Masounia, he made a new gang of wonderful people,
06:29he has never been alone, he is a man who has never had lunch alone, in 93 years, it's amazing,
06:36he had quality people, artists, writers, much younger than him,
06:43who came to see him every day, every two days, every three days, he has never been alone,
06:47and he didn't die in solitude, not at all, not at all, not at all.
06:52Simone Mitton, thank you very much for accepting our invitation,
06:55I remind you that your last documentary, the 1,001 days of Edmond, of Hajj, Edmond,
07:01was presented in the world premiere at the 21st edition of the International Film Festival in Marrakech,
07:09and that he will probably travel through the countries.
07:13Thank you, dear viewers, for your loyalty, stay with us,
07:16the information continues on our different channels,
07:19Mediane TV Arabic, Mediane TV Maghreb, Mediane TV Africa,
07:22and of course on our digital media, medianews.com.