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  • A Letter to Mohamed
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  • Language French
  • Subtitles English, French

part of
double bill #28

A Letter to Mohamed

Lettre à Mohamed
Christine Moderbacher, Belgium, Tunisia, Austria, 2013, 35’
IFFR

2014

“Free since January 14, 2011”—that’s what it says on the T-shirts that the people proudly wore for a while in Tunisia. It was on this day that despot Ben Ali left the country, and a new history of freedom began, from which Christine Moderbacher takes random samples in her documentary film A Letter to Mohamed. For example, there are the children who play in the ruins of a building on the wall of which someone has sprayed a polemic statement: “Stealing from the people to build such an ugly shack.” 

Under Ben Ali, a small elite brazenly became rich at the cost of the people; now there is hope for freedom, democracy, justice, and (this aspect, too, plays an important role), the return of tourism. What might freedom look like? It has to be a freedom that doesn’t come from above, like a gift. In 1956 president Bourguiba single-handedly took off women’s veils, as Christine Moderbacher shows with a historical film clip: “What one person gives, another can take,” she says from off camera. 

A Letter to Mohamed is a cinematic letter from the filmmaker to her friend in Belgium, the titular Mohamed, who left Tunisia. “Fleeing” and “self-immolation” share the same Arabic root—fire. Christine Moderbacher connects her letter to Mohamed with the name with which the Tunisian revolution began: with Mohamed Bouazizi, who set himself on fire. This film takes place against the backdrop of disillusionment, yet in the images is the trace of a fire that can be sparked at any time. 

Bert Rebhandl, sixpackfilm

Bio Christine Moderbacher

Christine Moderbacher, born in Vienna, is a documentary filmmaker and anthropologist. Since 2013, she has been making films, texts, video installations, and audio features, with a focus on migratory and marginal worlds and on visual and textual storytelling.
Lettre à Mohamed (Christine Moderbacher, 2013)
Lettre à Mohamed (Christine Moderbacher, 2013)
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An Archaeology of Moments

Christine Moderbacher’s Lettre à Mohamed

Alonso Aguilar
30.04.2025
essay

Christine Moderbachers Lettre à Mohamed (2013) is een audiovisuele brief in de puurste vorm. Door gebruik te maken van de grenzeloze mogelijkheden van het format, lijkt de film op geen enkele andere manier te kunnen bestaan. Wij, als kijkers, weten nauwelijks iets over de titulaire Mohamed. Hij heeft Tunesië verlaten, zoveel is duidelijk, en nu krijgt hij de veranderingen te zien die sindsdien in zijn land hebben plaatsgevonden, vanuit het perspectief en de opnames van zijn bevriende filmmaker.

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Credits

Camera
Hamadi Bousselmi
Editor
Marie Cordenier
Sound
Madelief de Heer
With support of
Pianofabriek, SIC (Sound Image Culture)
271
essay documentary politics history

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